


Within Monsters

by AnonymousMink



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Apprentice!Rey, F/M, Lots of UST, Semi-Slow Burn, Technician!Rey, Then eventually some RST ;-)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-05-21 07:29:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 46
Words: 132,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6043297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousMink/pseuds/AnonymousMink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the last place she ever thought she’d end up.</p><p>When work dries up on Jakku, a desperate Rey enlists with Galactech-- a tech company who will hire anyone with the right skills, and work for anyone for the right price. Now trapped onboard the Finalizer, Rey is both horrified and fascinated by the dark tales she hears about the leader of the Knights of Ren and the mysterious Force he controls.</p><p>But, when a chance encounter awakens a power within her she has never known, it may just be Kylo Ren’s fascination with her that becomes her undoing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Whispers

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! 
> 
> Sooo... this is a story I've wanted to write since I first saw the movie and I'm only now getting around to actually doing it! It's probably been done to death but this is my take on a different first meeting between them, and the ripples it creates. I'm not sure quite where the story is taking me yet, or how long it'll take to get there, but I hope you enjoy the ride! :-D
> 
> My forever thanks to Rellie - Beta-reader extraordinare, constant fount of inspiration, and all around best space trash buddy a girl like me could ever ask for! :D

 

 

“I know some of you have been through this talk before." The woman in the front holds up her hands, effortlessly drawing the attention of the crowded shuttle. “But it’s _important_ so we’re doing it again.”

 

Rey’s head shoots up, fingers halting over her second-hand datapad. Her hands tighten unconsciously around it's edges, feeling each groove and scar in the metal. It’s a battered, half broken thing with something that looks suspiciously like blaster damage shearing off one corner completely. She can't help but wonder if it's a metaphor for her life right now.

 

Worn, weary, but working.

 

Always working.

 

She’s been tightening the loose connections to pass the time on the short journey through hyperspace. The busy work keeping her from dwelling too much on the fact that deep down, no matter how much she tries to hide it from herself, she's just a little bit terrified. The fear of what's about to happen flutters inside of her stomach with leathery wings, far too toothsome to be butterflies anymore.

 

She's never been this far from Jakku in her whole life.

 

“Listen up newbies, a First Order ship is not a deep space cruise.” Her new bosses words have her snapping to attention. Vahna's hands fisting against her hips as she stares down at the new recruits. Cutting into them with her eyes. “We're here to rewire the data cables and take some strain off the onsite crew. You will do as you’re told, keep your heads down and for the love of the Maker _do not talk back_. This isn’t a place for politics, people! Stick to the areas assigned to you, and, if you want to make it home again, stay away from the upper-management.”

 

Rey swallows hard, feeling her heart rate pick up at the sharp warning. The speech driven home when, as if on cue, the Resurgent-class star destroyer they'll be working on for the next few months looms into view. A giant grey arrow standing out in sharp contrast against the blackness of space.

 

The unsettling feeling that's been building up in her since they left the planet takes on new edges. An uncomfortable awareness of something she can’t quite put words to gnawing at the back of her mind. She forces it back, slipping the data-pad into her standard-issue rucksack. Gaze fixed almost unwillingly out of the viewport. The Finalizer is huge, rapidly approaching until it's all she can see, blocking out the stars.

 

R’iia, this is the last place she ever thought she’d find herself.

 

Starved to death at the bottom of a sand dune being eaten by desert rats had always been a possibility, sure, but _this_?

 

She’d never seen this coming.

 

Now it feels almost inevitable. There were only so many wrecks to scavenge on Jakku after all, fewer still after the Outriders encroached into her territory from beyond the Shard. When Unkar Plutt had raised the value of portions for the third time in as many months, she knew she'd run out of choices. Her options drying up like water in the desert sun.

 

She'd been caught up bargaining over scraps when the shuttle stopped to refuel at the Outpost. Every head turning to look at it as it touched down, kicking up clouds of sand in it's wake. They didn't get a lot of traffic after all. She'd been just as fascinated, craning her neck across the market place for a better look. The dust cleared slowly, revealing the shuttle's logo, battered but readable against the endless blue sky.

 

Like a sign from the Maker.

 

Galactech. 

 

She knew them by reputation. They’d sometimes stop at the Outpost for supplies when working on this side of the Western Reaches, a respectable but dull crew. Mercenary technicians with no allegiances or politics. They went wherever they were needed, worked for anyone who would pay.

 

Hired anyone one with the right skills.

 

One look at the shuttle and she knew what she'd have to do to survive. She'd sped back to her home and packed up the few things she couldn’t live without, sold her speeder for less than it could ever be worth, and buried the last of her childish hopes in the sand.

 

Her heart hammered so hard she could taste it as she barged her way onboard the shuttle and demanded they take her with them on the next run. Cold sweat beading on the back of her neck as she recited every bit of technical knowledge she'd ever learnt. Imperial, Alliance, everything she'd ever scavenged or simulated. The shuttles she'd fixed, the generators she'd rewired. A desperate, jumbled monologue over the sound of her stomach growling.

 

Her pride had been the only thing keeping her shoulders straight under their gaze. The only thing keeping her from begging.

 

The longest minute of her life passed in silence before the mission leader had nodded.

 

She was hired.

 

 _What if they come back when you're gone_. Her subconscious, always a fairweather friend, had whispered to her as she walked away from everything she’d ever known. Twisting her gut with worries about a family she could barely remember. The ones who had abandoned her on that waste of a planet in the first place. _They're not coming back._ She had had to remind herself. _No one’s going to save me._

 

The same is just as true now, she has to work if she wants to survive. You can’t eat hope.

 

Her mind snaps back to the present as her seat mate starts to fidget next to her. Looking even more anxious than Rey feels.

 

She's been lumped in with the other new recruits, a skinny young man with a nervous face by the name of Lim and a set of unsettlingly attractive twins named Zalya and Yalza. Sandwiched between them on the shuttle, the twins seem content to accept their new leader's words at face value but it's clear that Lim isn't quite as sure. Visibly shaking he raises his hand, squinting up at the front of the shuttle.

 

“What?” Vahna asks so sharply the boy skitters in his seat. Forcing Rey to inch away from the sudden proximity to a lot of thin, sweaty limbs that aren't her own.

 

"Is it- is it true there’s a-” He looks around, fear flickering in his gaze, as if at any second someone will spring from the shadows and strike him down for his curiosity, “ _Sith Lord_ onboard the ship?”

 

Rey tenses. There have been rumours of course, but there are always rumours. Scary stories of a Sith-like figure that frequents the First Order’s flagship, taller than a Krayt Dragon and twice as vicious.

 

She doesn't believe it, she told Lim as much back on the docking station before they boarded the shuttle. Jedi Knights and Sith Lords and the rest of it were stories. Good stories sure, the _best_ kind of stories in her opinion, but stories nonetheless. The universe was nowhere near interesting enough for them to be real.

 

Reality was sand and scrap and  _work._ Magic powers only existed in myths and holonovels.

 

“No.” Vahna replies tersely.

 

Rey sighs, relaxing in her seat. Trying to ignore the strange little pang of disappointment that echoes between her ribs. At least a mystical figure, no matter how dark, might spice up the four months of cable rewiring they've got planned. She's about to turn away, gaze drifting back to the terrifyingly huge star destroyer filling up her peripheral vision when Vahna opens her mouth again. Pulling Rey's attention back to the front of the ship.

 

"However..." Vahna's lips thin, something unusually wary passing over her features even as her tone stays firmly professional, "The Finalizer is currently home to Commander Ren, a dark force user of some strength, if the stories are to be believed. Again I advise you all to stay far out of his way.”

 

Rey blinks. An icy shiver running down her spine at their leader's admission. They _were_ legends weren’t they? Surely such a person couldn’t actually exist? Her pulse jumps a little faster at the thought. She tries to tell herself this is a joke, an act. A story told to frighten the new crew into toeing the line, only... in the two weeks Rey's been training with the other technicians Vahna has never once lied. Never once cracked a joke.

 

She swallows hard, stomach dancing as she stares at the ship with renewed interest. Unsure if she's more frightened or intrigued about the prospect of being trapped on a war ship with an _actual_ dark force user.  

 

She's always loved the stories after all.

 

Lim looks like he’s about to throw up. The veteran technician sitting on his other side edging away. Rey does the same, unable to keep from feeling a jolt of compassion for her fellow newbie even as she does so. She might be intrigued by the idea but it's clear Lim is anything but. He's come from an academy after all, not the wasteland. He hasn't had to live with fear like she has.

 

She squashes the feeling, now is not the time to be worried about anyone else. If the desert’s taught her anything it’s the importance of self preservation. She has to look after her self first and foremost, everything else comes second.

 

Especially now.

 

The landing gear whines as they begin their final descent, the ship groaning as they dock within the Finalizer. Suddenly enclosed in the brightly lit hangar of the Star Destroyer.

 

Rey feels her stomach flip as she gathers her things, eyes glued to the viewport as they all fall in line. The hangar is alive with activity. The stark-white shapes of stormtroopers marching back and forth across the dark floor in formation. It’s as if they’re on strings. Squadrons of TIE fighters sitting prepped and ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice.

 

The scale of it all is overwhelming, stealing the breath from her lungs as she tries not to gape. She's never seen so many people or ships in one place before. At least... she thinks they’re people. The masks make it hard to tell. She’s seen more than her fair share of them in the past, but the ones she’s known were only worn by skeletons in ship wrecks. The masks are even more unsettling now, just as lifeless in motion.

 

For a moment all she can see is moving corpses, a shiver stealing down her spine at the thought. One that's not helped in the least the bone-cold chill that occupies the hangar, sapping the heat from her limbs. Making her almost stupidly glad when she sees it's an officer waiting to greet them at the bottom of the ramp. 

 

The officers don’t wear masks.

 

“Vahna Mark and team from Galactech, ma’am,” Vahna marches ahead of them, back ram-rod straight as she hands off their credentials, “Reporting for work order 0786.”

 

The officer nods, her face pinched and pale under the fluorescents as the crew falls into line in front of her. Her gaze fixed on her pristine Order-issue datapad. Non scuff marks or blaster damage there.

 

“Report to Bay 7 for accreditation and quarter details.” She signals over one of the stormtroopers and Rey's heart sinks. The empty expression of the mask is even worse up close. “Take them to Officer Ang.”

 

The trooper shoots off a smart salute, turning sharply on his or her heel to lead them deeper into the ship.

 

Rey’s home for the next four months.

 

If she survives that long.

 

-

 

Rey’s fear doesn’t last the week.

 

Life on Jakku has made her adaptable. Before she knows it she’s navigating the corridors of the Finalizer like she designed them herself. Their blueprints imprinted firmly on the back of her eyes as she takes the service elevator down to D-deck. Bag swaying on her shoulder as she takes a short cut through the generator room, exhausted from another long, tedious day of rewiring data cables.

 

It turns out the rules for survival here aren't so very different than back on Jakku. Keep your head down, do your job, get on with it.

 

And, unlike life on the desert planet, Rey has a new light in her life...

 

_The food._

 

She might not personally buy into the  First Order and their quest for a unified galaxy, but she cannot deny their food is the best she’s ever eaten. Clutching her canteen card between her fingers like it's made of gold she swings into the mess hall, already overcome by the scent of fresh-cooked food before she makes it through the doorway. She doesn't even pause to return the wave of her crewmates as she heads for the queue, they should know well enough by now that she won’t be sociable until after her mouth is full. 

 

There’s meat waiting,  _real_ meat, in a numian sauce, and meal bread too. Not the poly-starch and veg-meat she’s lived off for as long as she can remember.

 

The first time she tastes it she almost cries.

 

She wishes she could say she savoured it, that first meal, but in truth it’s weeks before she stops shoveling it in fast enough to truly appreciate the flavours. 

 

She’s not the only one who eats fast though, the troopers have it down to a science. It's still a shock to see them without their helmets. They’re all so different underneath, young men and women of every kind.

 

So incredibly _human_.

 

Their meal breaks are regimented, their whole lives structured to the last second, but she still hears the jokes thrown between them as they scarf down their food. Calling each other nicknames instead of numbers.

 

She no longer flinches at the sight of them on the upper deck anymore.

 

The technicians and support staff get longer to eat, picking over their meals in the lull after the long hours of their shifts. She drops herself down at their table, offering a quick nod before she attacks today's dinner. Listening to them complain with half an ear, too busy stuffing her face usually to pay much heed to the tired gripes of her peers. That is until their voices drop and they start swapping stories about the infamous Commander Ren... the feared  _Lord Kylo Ren_ , as she finds out his full name is -and his band of knights. Then she pays full attention. Lowering her fork as one of the older technicians launches into the story of the most recent damage to one of the comm-rooms on the upper deck.

 

Rey can’t deny her curiosity has been growing over the mysterious figure that supposedly haunts the hallways. The technicians on her crew whisper about him like he’s a ghost. The ones who work for the First Order shudder at his name, complaining under their breath about lightsaber damage before looking around with wide eyes, as if he might somehow hear them from half the ship away and strike them down for their insubordination.

 

Rey just feels a guilty rush of interest, he has a _lightsaber_. A real life one.

 

The rumours about him are like the best kind of ghost stories told in the dark nights of the Outpost. Terrifying and intriguing in equal parts. _Do you know he can hear your thoughts from a hundred miles? Have you ever seen him crush a man from across the room? Did you know he’s descended from royalty? Have you heard he has no face under his mask? I heard it was melted off in a fire..._

 

-

 

It takes her weeks to actually catch sight of him.

 

Stuck as she is on the lowest rung of the ship replacing all the data-cables on the supply deck. Grappling with carbon wires and connectors for hours at a time, stuck inside the cramped wall panels with nothing but her magwrench for company. Then, at the very last second, she gets her shift switched with Zayla.

 

She'll be on the top floor now.

 

The Officers deck.

 

She nearly swallows her heart when she finally sees him, striding around the corner like a shadow made flesh.

 

The rumours are true.

 

He’s just as tall and dark and terrifying as they say. Truly alien, his presence filling up the hallway until she can feel her hair standing on edge from the static charge.

 

She stays low, pressed against the wall with her head dropped in the way Vahna has taught them is best to survive. She can’t help but watch him from under her lashes as he sweeps past her. Black fabric and menace. She thinks she can see the dark metal hilt of his saber at his waist and her veins pulse with adrenaline.

 

Then he is gone and the moment passes. Over before it even began. Her heart slows, giddy fear fading away as the cold reality of her life washes back in. Suddenly unbearably grey in comparison as her adrenaline wanes.

 

With a sigh she cracks open the wall panel and eases herself inside, magwrench between her teeth as she turns on her solarlight.

 

The ship won’t rewire itself after all.

 

Still, she can’t keep herself from daydreaming about magic powers and laser swords as she works.

 


	2. On Second Glance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be careful what you wish for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who read & commented on that first chapter - I was absolutely blown away by the response! I really hope you guys continue to enjoy the story! :D
> 
> And, as always, special thanks to my best Beta - Rellie! :D

 

Space is cold.

 

Rey doesn't think she'll ever get used to it. Especially since the First Order seem to be keeping costs down by not having a functioning heating system. In fact, if anything it seems like they're striving to make the ship  _even_ colder.

 

Maybe it's a calculated decision, a ploy to keep the storm troopers and staff from dawdling in the hallways when they should be working or patrolling. Maybe it's the optimum temperature if you're wearing a nice thick wool uniform, or carbon armour instead of a thin navy jumpsuit. 

 

Whatever the reason she really wishes they'd sort it out, she's had to start wriggling into her uniform under the covers in her bunk in the morning. Anything to avoid the frigid chill of the quarters she shares with the twins.

 

Of course ten minutes after stuffing herself into a wall panel she finds herself wishing they’d crank the cooling system up even further. The work conditions mean she spends most of the day cramped up inside a space barely bigger than she is, electric cables burning merrily away on all sides as she pulls and tugs at the data lines.

 

She yanks her scarf up high and goggles down low to keep the sweat and sparks from blinding her in the claustrophobic inferno, trying not to get nostalgic for the dry heat of the desert. Fantasizing about how easy it would be to modify the climate control, to vent the heat from the cables into the corridor and the cool of the ship back into the wall panels. A little tweak here, a few fresh cables there, and it would be _ideal._

 

With the impressive technical specs the ship boasts it'd be easy as breathing. The Finalizer has more high-tech features than anything she's ever seen before, packed to the rafters with comm-spaces, data processors and access points.

 

Not to mention the _holoprojectors._

 

They're  _everywhere_. At every corridor intersection and outside every mess hall and quarter block.

 

Every day, mid-morning and mid-evening, the entire ship stops for a full ten minutes to watch them, mandatory morale films playing on repeat. As hired-in technicians they aren’t required to join the viewings but Rey does anyway.

 

It means she can crawl out of the wall vent and uncrack her spine for a short while at least.

 

It always starts with a speech, usually given by General Hux. She’s only seen him twice in the flesh, both times his sharp look made her instantly aware of just how much oil she was covered in.

 

And perversely wish it was more.

 

He’s followed by stories of First Order victories and the appalling state of the rest of the galaxy.

 

She can’t help but shudder when the screen turns to the famines, children of Ibaar starving to death as the corrupt government does nothing to help. Their bellies round with air, ribs sticking through paper thin skin. She had thought she’d known hunger, true desperate hunger, but the sight of them - it makes her gut clench. For all her struggles she has never starved like they have.

 

She silently thanks all and any deity that might listen to her for her own job, for the fact that she might never have to go hungry again.

 

“Don’t worry, ma’am.” One of the troopers says quietly, noticing her discomfort at the scenes playing out in front of them. His voice distorted through the helmet but unmistakably _proud_. “That’s what we’re here for.”

 

She doesn’t know if it makes her feel better or worse.

 

One thing she notices about the footage is the suspicious absence of the Knights of Ren. The First Order cameras trained firmly on the troopers and officers, the elusive knights don’t feature at all. She wonders why, Kylo Ren is obviously something of a hero to the First Order. Spoken about in hushed reverence and fear in turn. And yet he doesn’t fill even one frame of the videos.

 

She thinks it’s a shame, the thought of seeing the Force used in action, even by a dark user, sends tingles down her spine. She’d never even dreamed of seeing a lightsaber in action before she stepped on board the ship. Now it’s all she can think about.

 

She gets her wish soon enough. Although not in the way she had wanted.

 

-

 

Something’s wrong.

 

Rey can feel it like a dull weight at the back of her skull. She’s been sent with Yalza to tune up the transmission units in the Comm-Tower. A welcome break after weeks of data-cables and cramped conditions. The still air has grown thicker as they work, it tastes like acrid smoke and strong liquor against her tongue, bitter and heady.

 

She’s amazed her work partner doesn’t notice it, oblivious to the dark cloud that’s heading towards them.

 

Acting on instinct at the rage she can feel ripening in the air she grabs Yalza by the arm, the other technician squeaking in protest as she’s dragged into the side room of the otherwise empty Comm-Tower. The door bursts open within seconds of them leaving.

 

She is unable to keep herself from pressing her nose to the grate as _he_ storms into the now deserted space. Kylo Ren in the flesh, boiling with rage. Yalza balks, pulling away to hide in the corner as the noise filters through. The high-pitched whine and purr of an unsteady plasma blade slicing through metal like butter.

 

Fear and adrenaline pulse as one inside of her as Rey watches the dark figure tear through the room with his yellow-red blade. She can’t look away.

 

On the one hand she’s disgusted, he’s ripping through technology she’s only dreamed of seeing up close before. It must have been worth a fortune, hundreds of portions worth of tech gone in an instant. But at the same time she’s fascinated by the ancient weapon, and the ease in which he wields it. Like an extension of his body.

 

A glorious, terrifying dance.

 

She can't keep herself from wondering what lies beneath the flat black stare of his mask as he destroys all her hard work. What kind of creature could be capable of doing something like this?

 

Exactly how _monstrous_ is he?

 

He halts, and the masked face turns. Slowly. The blank gaze fixing on her hiding place. Her lungs seize up inside her chest as she tries desperately to not be noticed. As if the force of her thoughts alone could shield her from his eyes.

 

The mask tilts, almost consideringly, then General Hux storms in and his attention is gone. She sprints to the back of the room, opening the panel she knows will lead them outside and crawling through the narrow gap. Yalza seconds behind. They don’t slow down until they hit the safety of the under deck.

 

-

 

He has lost control again.

 

Anger rising like the tide until he’s consumed by it, laying waste to his mastery of himself until he is a creature of raw feeling. The audience with his Master has been a humiliation. The image of Hux bowing and scraping before the Supreme Leader returns to him like a shot to the gut. Snivelling _wretch_. Hux always finds a way to cast blame onto Ren’s shoulders during the meetings. Their inability to locate Skywalker. Their difficulties with the Resistance. It’s all made his fault alone under Hux’s forked tongue.

 

He would kill him. Strike the lesser man down with a thought. No, with the red edge of his blade. No, with his bare hands. He would squeeze and squeeze at his pale throat with nothing but his own strength, watching the light die in those cowardly milk blue eyes.

 

But his Master will not allow it, and Ren will not defy his Master.

 

So he is left without channel for this fury. Only the cool metal of his mask keeping him from betraying it to the denizens of the ship as he strides from the audience chamber looking for release. He must vent it upon the world, excise it from his soul in a hail of destruction so he can think again. The tower is nearest, empty and firmly in Hux’s domain. A joyful coincidence.

 

He tears into it without pause, carving his humiliation into the comm-unit in molten lines. The sizzle and screech of the metal becoming music to him as he unleashes the weight of his anger into each frenzied stroke. Muscles coiling and burning under his skin as he drives the humiliation from his soul.

 

The rage is finally beginning to ebb when he senses it. Something brushes against the edge of his mind like velvet. A quiet whisper of horror with words too low to hear, a rustle of excitement.

 

He turns, stretching out his power to seek its source. There is something… different. A strange little bubble he cannot read as he brushes over it. He tilts his head. It’s unlike anything he’s felt before, familiar and yet not under the weight of his mind. And _right_ behind that door.

 

He is taking his first step towards it when the other door slams open and Hux storms in, pale face livid and splotchy beneath his cap. The feeling is forgotten, hatred boiling up to the surface anew as the wretched ginger snake opens himself up for round two.

 

Ren really wishes his Master would let him kill him already.

 

-

 

“Are you listening?” Jay, the most talkative member of the Galatech crew, leans his burly weight across the table and jabs Rey with the edge of his fork. “You usually love this stuff.”

 

She jumps back, flinching at the sudden intrusion on her thoughts. It’s been two days and the incident in the Comm-Tower is still all she can think about. The pulsing hum of plasma slicing through metal chasing her into sleep each night.

 

Jay is still waiting for her response, the grizzled veteran technician looking concerned at her uncharacteristic reticence. They’re talking about Kylo Ren again. The canteen is deserted since they’ve been running the late shift tonight and the emptiness has made them bold. Jay has been regaling them with the rumours he’s heard about the terrifying exploits of the Knights of Ren. They say they've destroyed a New Republic army without aid in the name of the First Order. “Still freaked out over the laser tantrum, huh?”

 

Yalza has wasted no time in spilling their story to the others, her sister clutching at her hand the whole time. She paints it in broad, violent strokes that don’t quite match up to Rey’s memory. It lacks the subtleties of the violence they have witnessed. Not mindless, but mindful. An outburst of emotions she can’t even begin to fathom. Her retelling doesn’t do justice to the quiet terror of that moment, that endless second, when she swore he had seen her through the solid metal door. It cannot capture the perverse undertone of excitement that thrummed in her blood alongside the fear.

 

A tiny shiver races the length of her spine but she refuses to let it show, tipping her head up instead and shrugging. “You’ve told us this story already.”

 

He scoffs, an alarming number of broken teeth showing as his face stretches into a grin. “You want a new one? Fine.” He lowers his voice conspiratorially and the tired technicians all draw in. “I’ll tell you about the secret of Kylo Ren’s name.”

 

“Name?” Zalya asks, leaning even further forward until she's practically lying in her dinner. “What about it?”

 

“It’s hardly going to be as interesting.” Yalza pouts, she enjoys the bloody stories best. Rey can sense her roommate’s thrill of disgust, trying to block it out as she stuffs the last of her meal into her mouth. She can’t enjoy the taste today.

 

“Oh isn’t it now?” Squaring his meaty forearms on the table he beckons them in closer. Despite herself Rey leans in too, the guilty thrill of curiosity overriding her discomfort. “Well, what I heard was that a long time ago, before Kylo Ren was Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader tasked him with getting rid of the last of the Jedis. There were still a few left back then y’see, hiding out after the galactic war and getting in the way. Only the Jedi found out and went completely off the radar. Years passed and Ren’s task seemed impossible. His powers growing with his anger as he ripped the galaxy apart to find them, becoming so strong that, when one of the Jedi apprentices mentioned him to their master, he could _hear them._ From all the way across the galaxy.”

 

The table waits in hushed silence for him to continue. The buzzing of the cooling system becoming the only sound in the world to them as they listen.

 

“Well, he went there at once of course, so consumed with his quest that - just to be sure he got them all - he burnt down the entire town they were hiding in. Thousands of men, women and children all burned to death in his fury. No one was spared. Only in his anger he hadn’t realized he’d trapped himself in the center of the inferno, barely escaping with his life. He’s so horrifically burnt from it he has to wear the mask, y’see. After that no one dared speak his real name for fear of summoning his wrath, the Supreme Leader even going so far as to outlaw it entirely.”

 

“What was it? His name?” Rey asks, unable to stop herself. She knows not to trust half of what Jay says, but his story has taken her in all the same. Even as she scoffs at it she can see the fire burning behind her eyelids.

 

He chuckles, smug from the attention, and spreads his hands. “No idea. No one dares say it.”

 

Rey shudders, cleaning away her tray before bidding the others goodnight. Unable to keep herself from wondering how much truth lies behind the awful tale.

 

One thing is certain, no matter how intriguing she might find his abilities, she hopes she won’t have to see Kylo Ren again anytime soon.

 


	3. Don't Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The old adage about curiosity and cats may not be so wrong after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone still commenting/kudo'ing/reading! I really appreciate it so much! :D  
> Also huge shout out to Rell for talking me off so many writer-y ledges, and, y'know, beta'ing this beast! :-D

 

The shifts she works in the officers quarters are the worst.

 

They’re handed out at random, throwing off any semblance of a balanced schedule. The timing is based around the needs of the rooms inhabitants, not the logical progression of work through the ship. Often she’ll only have a few hours to rewire a data-point that should by all rights take a full day of work.

 

It’s not even worth it to snoop through the lives of the Finalizers elite either. The rooms are inevitably boring, the same dull furnishings and Order-approved shelf-fillers. There are very few photos, mostly academy shots and military teams, and even fewer personal items. The Order seems to actively discourage individuality.

 

Rey holds out her datapad, waiting for her assignment. Hoping it won't be one of those days.

 

“You’re on Quarter Duty." Vahna swipes the infocard over the screen and Rey barely bites back her groan. _Of course she is._  "Fourteen hundred hours. Be done by twenty hundred hours. Room zero one.”

 

The Galactech leader shoos her aside without waiting for a response, leaving Rey to begrudgingly trail away. The blueprints flicker to life on her screen and the groan she's been fighting slips out. Six hours is cutting it pretty fine to rewire the double-sized data-point in the quarters main room. She’s reaching for her kit when it catches up to her how strange the layout is for an Officer’s room, it doesn’t fit the usual specs at all. The main room is too big, as is the wash room, and, instead of the accepted one or two small room design, it has three sizable rooms instead.

 

“Vahna?” She calls back as she straps her tool belt on, still squinting at the little map. “Are you sure this is the right place? The layout seems… wrong.”

 

Vahna sighs, like it’s the hundredth time Rey’s questioned her instead of the first, and flicks back to the assignment chart.

 

“Technician six-one-nine, Rey. Quarter Duty, room zero one.” She repeats with an irritated shrug, bringing up the map. “Six hour fix due to Commander Ren’s recently scheduled trip to Malastare... Oh.” Vahna is brought up short, eyes widening slightly. For the usually stoic woman it’s an almost violent burst of emotion. “That would be why.”

 

“Commander… Ren.” Rey repeats, stomach dropping to her feet as her fingers grip convulsively around her work bag. Fate is being particularly cruel to her this week. “As in, _Kylo_ Ren?”

 

“Yup.” The other technician nods.

 

“And I don’t suppose there’s any way I can change shift now?” She asks dryly, trying to keep her voice from betraying the sudden heavy weight of dread that’s settled in her bones.

 

“Nope.” Vahna shakes her head, looking just the slightest bit regretful at the situation. Not enough to change the schedule though, the chart says it’s Rey, so Rey it will be.

 

She straightens her shoulders, fate sealed. “Wish me luck then.”

 

“Good luck.” Vahna watches her go like she’s marching to her death. Not the most comforting thought.  “Rey-”

 

“Yes?” She halts in the doorway, hope blooming in her chest that maybe there’s been a mistake after all. That she won’t be sent straight into the beast’s den.

 

“Work fast.”

 

-

 

“In and out,” she mutters to herself as she keys in the entrance code to Kylo Ren’s private quarters. Scowling at her hands when they shake over the numbers. “In and out. Don’t look, don’t touch. Just do your job and leave.”

 

The pep talk isn’t quite enough to keep her heart from seizing as the door wooshes open though, terrified for one moment that he’ll be standing on the other side saber in hand. _Waiting for her._

 

Which is ridiculous because not only does he neither know nor care who she is, he’s also already left the ship. She’d snuck down to the viewing tower just to make sure, watching the upsilon-class command shuttle until it left sight before hurrying to his room.

 

When she finally steps inside, it’s just as grey and empty as the rest of the ship. No blood splattered walls or skull-lined shelving. Not that she saw it like that in her feverish imagination of course, no, not at all.

 

And it’s gloriously devoid of human life.

 

She doesn’t let herself look too hard, striding purposefully towards the wall panel she knows conceals the wiring. She can already feel the curiosity rising, the temptation to linger in the inner sanctuary of the First Order’s most infamous son becoming stronger with each passing step. The fear still over-rules it though.

 

“Work first.” she reminds herself. Immediately regretting speaking the words out loud. They echo strangely in the room, setting her nerves on edge as she unbolts the panel and eases herself inside.

 

It’s surprisingly easy to forget where she is when she’s neck deep in hard data cables. The terror becomes a subtle throb at the back of her mind as she goes through the familiar motions of patching and replacing the old weight wires, the adrenaline fading to a dull ache as she speeds through her work.

 

Hours pass in cramped exertion until suddenly, before she’s even realized it, she’s finished. She hauls herself out of the wall with a sigh of relief she can feel all the way down to her toes, carefully fixing the panel back in place behind her. Pulling her goggles up she glances at the time on her datapad before stashing it away and shouldering her bag. She has half an hour spare before he’s due back.

 

Half an hour in a place almost no one else on the ship, in the galaxy even, would ever get to see.

 

Her heart, which has migrated slowly from her chest up into her throat during the passing hours, decides to make the final push up into her mouth as she surveys the room. _One quick look_ , she thinks, swallowing hard. She’ll never get this chance again.

 

The room is fairly standard as rooms go. Empty in the way all of the quarters on board are.

 

His bed is larger than the other officers but not obscenely so, carelessly made with black cyrene silk sheets. Rumpled but neat. She snorts, wondering if everything he owns is black. There’s a table with two chairs. One of them hasn’t been put back properly, she can see scuff marks under the legs where he’s dragged it out, the other is untouched.

 

He eats alone then.

 

Not that _that_ surprises her.

 

Her heart is picking up speed again, intrigue and anxiety becoming uneasy bedfellows in her veins as she tentatively crosses the room. Lingering for a moment at the large viewport set in the far wall where it seems the whole cosmos has been laid out for his viewing pleasure. She tries to imagine him standing there. A black shadow against the glass with the stars stretching into infinity at his feet, a strange, lonely picture.

 

She wonders if he sees them as something to be conquered or feared, the million trillion worlds just beyond his reach.

 

Another cold shiver creeps along the back of her neck at the thought and she turns away, surveying the rest. The doors that lead off from the main room are firmly closed, she considers opening them but not all of the alarm specs are listed on her blueprints. She really doesn’t want to have to explain what she’s doing snooping around Commander Ren’s apartment to anyone. The same goes for the storage cupboards that line the far wall.

 

She stares at them instead, as if by looking hard enough she might be able to see right through them.

 

She wonders if _that’s_ where he keeps his masks.

 

He must have more than one surely? Just in case. She sees two, three, a dozen flat black masks looking back at her from her imagination. Neatly laid out on their  shelves, each equidistant from each other.

 

Like severed heads.

 

Another shiver pulses down her spine, reminding her that there are things she really _doesn’t_ want to know.

 

She's turning to leave when something catches her eyes. A work bench in the very furthest corner of the room, half obscured by the metal cupboards. It’s folded down from the wall, so small she almost didn't notice it. Without thinking she approaches. It’s cluttered with tools and debris, wire ends and batteries scattered across it’s surface without rhyme or reason. Something dark sits in it’s center that she can’t quite make out, a strange cylinder of metal. The curiosity eats at her and suddenly she’s standing right in front of it

 

Her heart stops entirely.

 

It’s the hilt of a lightsaber, _his lightsaber,_ the one she saw him destroy the comm-tower with.

 

She’d recognize it anywhere, the distinctive cross-guard shape has seared itself into her memory forever. It’s both larger and smaller than she remembers; the front panel missing entirely, exposing a network of wires and intricate circuits that her hands itch to examine. The metal is so dark it’s almost black, scarred and pitted, a carb-soldering iron still cooling on side where he must have left it hours before, mid-repair.

 

She should go. Time is slipping away from her by the handful and he could return any moment. But she can’t leave, not yet. Her lungs seize as she reaches for the hilt. This is wrong, it goes against every rule drummed into her by the other technicians but she can’t stop herself. It’s as if she’s lost control of her actions entirely, stuck in a trance she can’t break out of as her fingertips extend without permission to brush the cold metal.

 

The moment she touches it the world ends.

 

She’s no longer in the room. She’s no longer even on the Finalizer. She’s outside, on a planet she’s never seen before, and right in front of her there’s a building on fire. It paints the night sky red and she’s suddenly choking on acrid smoke. Somewhere someone is screaming, the sound barely audible over the crackling flames and the thundering of blood in her ears. She runs from it, right into a cold cavernous room that appears around her in the millisecond between her heartbeats. She stumbles over her feet, gazing up in terror at the flickering holo-figure that fills the space. Three hundred meters tall and _evil_.

_Truly evil._

The weight of his power is crushing as he rises to tower over her, splitting her head in two. If she stays there she will die.

She’s running again. There’s a man in a hood on an island, and a woman with the weight of the galaxy in her eyes. A familiar ship in a strange hangar. Then she’s back in the desert, watching herself fight to get back to the people who've left her there. The ones who’ve abandoned her. She can feel tears streaking down her face.

She’s in a forest. Voices crowd her head, screams and supplications. She can smell the lush damp loom, hear the rustling of leaves above her as a cool wind whips up the air. Some one breaks from the trees behind her. _Him._ Kylo Ren. He’s even taller now, a black demon, staring at her with such intensity from behind his mask that it suddenly hurts to look at him. He raises his hand towards her and her heart catches in her throat. She tries to run, tripping over a tree root and falling hard to the floor.

 

The cold metal floor of the Finalizer.

 

She’s back in his quarters, the only sound now is that of her ragged sobs echoing in the empty chamber. She’s drenched with sweat and gasping as if she’s just run a mile, she feels like she has. Muscles seized with a tension that still grips at her with icy claws. For a moment she can do nothing but lie there, letting the coldness sink into the burning skin of her forehead as she struggles to remember who she is and how she got there.

 

She tries to convince herself that whatever just happened wasn’t real. No more than her own anxiety manifesting as a daylight fever dream.

 

Then she feels it, a sharp sudden awareness in the pit of her stomach. As if someone’s shouted her name from right beside her. The room is silent apart from her breathing but the feeling doesn’t fade. _Someone is coming for her_. Her heart picks up again, beating a violent tattoo against her ribs as she struggles to stand.

 

Her feet jerk under her, unwilling to comply as she instinctively pushes the phantom power that’s tugging at her mind away, over and over. She imagines herself in a bubble, no a box. Inside a tiny metal chamber with no doors. She drags imaginary chains over it as she runs wildly for the door, adding layer after layer until she can’t feel the insidious touch of power on her mind anymore. Not caring about the strange looks she gets as she pelts through the hallways, tear-stained and shaking.

 

She must get as far away from this place as she can and never speak of it again.

 


	4. The Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes our only option is to hide in plain sight and hope we're only dreaming that someone is chasing us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to the overwhelming amount of support I got for the last chapter I decided to post this one ahead of schedule! Thank you so much for commenting guys, I really can't tell you what it means to me! :D
> 
> And my forever thanks to my fandom enabling, fic dealing, psychic trash twin Beta reader - Rell! She makes words happen :D

 

 

The trip to Malastare is a last minute inconvenience.

 

His temper has gotten the best of him again. The rage he vented in the comm-tower, whilst momentarily satisfying, has dislodged the reserve power cell in his lightsaber. An archaic form of battery that's not used on the ship anymore, one he, foolishly of all, doesn’t have a backup for in his own stores. He grinds his teeth at his own inexcusable oversight, knowing he won't be able to rest easy until he's replaced it, and charts his course. 

 

It would be nothing to send someone else on this petty errand, a short trip to retrieve one from the nearest planet. But he doesn’t trust them. Any of them. No one needs to know that his weapon is not at full power.

 

So he goes alone.

 

No one dares question him.

 

The journey is just as dull and tedious as he has imagined, made worse by the tension that builds behind his temples as he returns to the ship. Almost vibrating with it by the time he finally drops out of hyperspace, the Finalizer waiting before him against the endless sea of the universe. Once the shuttle has locked itself into its automatic landing sequence he closes his eyes behind his mask, trying to concentrate on the feeling that has been unsettling him all day. The unfamiliar pricking at the back of his mind that he can't quite grasp onto no matter how hard he tries. He’s certain it's connected somehow to the strange anomaly in the force he felt back in the comm-tower not so very long ago. An awareness of something he can’t quite put his finger on, half formed and fleeting.

 

He’s almost given up on pinning it down when it hits.

 

A wave of unbridled power.

 

His hands clench convulsively at his side, leather gloves creaking as his muscles seize up. The feeling crashes over him, intense and everywhere at once until he’s struggling to breath through it.

 

It’s like being plunged into the depths of the ocean, the power unlike anything he’s ever known before. It’s not the pitch-black gravity of his masters touch, or the dim memory he has of his uncle’s star-bright supernova. It’s _raw_. Untamed and urgent as it pulls at him. A desperate pulse that clings to the cracks in his defenses, as if to anchor itself to anything that might steady it. Wrapping itself around him and pulling him under until he's  _drowning_ in it.

 

Lights burst behind his eyes as he falls into it for one long moment. Catching fleeting, fevered glimpses at something in it's center. _Somebody._ Their shout echoing inside of his head as the shuttle suddenly fills with the scent of soap and salt and oil. Then, as soon as it has come, the feeling fades. Dying down to a dull throb in his veins.

 

He sucks in a harsh breath, steadying himself as his mind becomes his own once more. Letting himself breathe for only a few short heartbeats before he dives back into the Force after it. Seeking out the source of the chaos, eyes still squeezed shut as he chases the echo of it. A cold durasteel corridor. Blinking red lights and barked orders.

 

The Finalizer.

 

He digs deeper. Feeling metal underneath his fingertips as he hurls himself through the fleeting connection. An empty table. Black sheets. An all too familiar view.

 

_His quarters._

He jerks to attention, eyes snapping open as he yanks the ship off autopilot. Landing the shuttle so fast he almost crashes it.

 

Someone has been in his quarters. Someone powerful _._ Someone who shouldn't even  _exist._

 

The feeling eats him alive, chewing through his patience and leaving him in the middle of something that's not quite rage or self-recrimination. It’s _need_. Need to know who could possibly create such a storm in the Force, tearing at it from within and emerging like a freighter from hyperspeed. Who could possibly have slipped his gaze like this. To discover whether they are friend or threat or something else entirely.

 

He blows past the lackeys waiting at the bottom of the ramp, striding right past the officer waiting at the edge of the hangar. Holding on to the last thread of this  _stranger's_ power. The connection is fading with every second, growing dimmer with each desperate step as the power ebbs. He picks up his pace, heart beating violently against his ribs as the walk becomes a run. Whoever they are, they are slipping through his fingers with every heartbeat. Fear rises up in his gullet.

 

He rushes through the door the second it crashes open.

 

It’s empty.

 

The power has suckerpunched it’s way between his ribs, carving a space where his organs should be, and then vanished. Leaving nothing but a memory in it’s wake. Hollow. His rage rushes in to fill the void.

 

He has been too slow. _Again._ Worthless. Useless.

 

His fists clench so hard the bones grate as he scours the room for some evidence of who has dared to stand there. Who has dared to do this to him.

 

The hilt of his saber has moved, lying at the wrong angle on the workbench, and there’s a smudge of oil on the floor at his feet. But otherwise it's clean, nothing else out of place.

 

Whoever has been here has been careful.

 

But not careful  _enough._

 

He reaches out to touch the saber, feeling the ghostly warmth of someone else’s hand still lingering on the metal. He thinks about turning around, about racing from this room and tearing the ship apart piece by piece until he finds them. Hunting them down through brute force before someone else does. But he knows already it would be of small use, they have vanished into a ship of thousands.

 

His breathing is strained, ragged through the helmet. He tears it off, flinging it against the wall with a metallic crash and sucking in lungs full of cold, recycled air.

 

He can't continue like this.

 

He must find them quietly. No word can spread of this to Hux, the thought has his face twisting in hatred. No, this must be undertaken with skill, not strength. It will require a deft touch.

 

Someone has been here within the last few hours, someone with access almost no one on the ship is allowed. His heart thunders, beating beyond control as he looks at the space where he knows they have stood.

 

He will find them.

 

-

 

“You’re alive then.”

 

“Huh?” Rey flinches at the words, almost dropping her datapad as Vahna appears behind her at the lockers.

 

Everything seems sharper today. Brighter and louder, she almost imagines she could hear the other woman’s heart beating if she listened hard enough. And yet her focus is off completely, she has been startled by three people and a particularly twitchy cleaning droid on the short journey from her quarters.

 

It's not a good morning.

 

“After your shift yesterday?” Vahna peers at her with something almost approaching concern. “You didn’t clock out.” It’s said in a way that makes it clear that had it been anyone else, on any other day, she would have ripped them a new one. Rey has earned her benevolence this one time and one time alone.

 

“Oh yeah - sorry. I just,” A shudder tears down her spine at the unwelcome reminder of the day before. She’s still trying to repress that particular memory, fighting to keep the tremors from her voice. “I just wanted to get out of there, you know? It must’ve slipped my mind.”

 

“Understandable.” Her boss nods, holding up the infocard with today’s schedule on it. “You’re on the mid-level. Conference room D13 is having some technical difficulties that need troubleshooting and maintenance has requested we fill in for them.”

 

It’s a gift after her last assignment. Vahna knows Rey chafes at undertaking the same fixes every day, that she misses the excitement of building things with her hands, repairing technology others can’t fathom. Rey thinks of her Speeder, her creation, and how fast and high it would soar when she wasn’t laden down with salvage. Troubleshooting a data-panel is hardly the same, but it is a welcome change from cables at least.

 

Rey acknowledges the nicety with a smile, holding out her datapad to be swiped. “Great. I’ll get right to it.”

 

“Hmm.” Benediction dispensed Vahna vanishes and Rey exhales the nervous energy that’s been building in her.

 

She’s been jumpy all day, not surprising considering the night she’s spent tossing and turning wide awake in her bunk. Flinching at every noise as the ship settled for the night, at every shadow. She sees flashes of the nightmare. Herself abandoned. Kylo Ren reaching for her. Strangers and fire. The towering demon she can only comprehend as Leader Snoke.

 

If the rumors of Commander Ren are bad they are nothing in comparison to the fleeting whispers she has heard of the First Order’s true leader. There is no intrigue in the fear she feels for him, only unadulterated terror that freezes her to the center of her bones. The technicians pale at his name, Kylo Ren may be a faceless wraith with powers beyond mortal imaginings. But Snoke, Snoke is _limitless._

 

He is all knowing and all powerful. Only the magnitude of his kingdom keeps his eyes from them, keeps him from laying them flat for daring to think of him. It is said that there are those who have been driven mad by the slightest touch of his displeasure. She remembers the sensation of the tar-like weight of his power oozing over her and she can well believe it, certain she would undertake all and anything to avoid his notice.

 

She fights the vision back, trying so hard to block it from her mind that she gives herself a headache. It beats behind her eyes as she clips on her harness and shoulders her kit. Now, in the cold light of the break room, it’s easier to dismiss as a bad dream.

 

She hasn’t dropped her rough-forged shields though, even if she now believes the only thing they’re keeping out of her mind is her own madness. Maybe the sudden vastness of the cosmos has addled her wits. Like the pilots who return after years lost in deep space, turning up on the wrong side of the galaxy with beards to their waists and stories of space angels.

 

No one has said anything about the incident though, no one knows about it.

 

She’ll keep it that way, then everything can go back to normal.

 

-

 

“A-are you unhappy with the technician’s work, Commander?” The office seems to shrink around him with every passing minute, a mausoleum of bureaucracy he has never deigned to enter before.

 

It's empty aside from the woman in front of him. A low-ranking officer. She stammers over her words, holding her datapad in a white knuckle grip she thinks he hasn’t noticed yet.

 

He itches to be gone already.

 

His irritation is threatening to overwhelm him. Each unnecessary interaction chipping away at the crumbling wall he's built around his rage even as he grits his teeth against it. Fighting to maintain the control he's worked so hard to master.

 

Ren has never been known for his patience.

 

It's late. He has chosen the time deliberately. Waiting hours after his discovery until he knows there is the smallest chance of being seen.

 

This is his first step in the search for _them_ , the wielder of the mystery power that has taken root in his mind. He has discovered that in his absence Hux has allowed maintenance to be scheduled in his quarters.

 

Without his knowledge.

 

His teeth click together beneath the mask, shoulders tensing against the fresh surge of rage. The darkness rising at the thought. He forces it back, it's a fight for another time. Right now he has more important things to think of.

 

He knows that logically this person, this _technician,_ who has become so intimately acquainted with his quarters is his best source of information. Although he's still struggling to imagine how someone so insignificant could have suddenly become the only link to something so important to him.

 

If he's lucky they are one and the same with the person he seeks.

 

Perhaps through some folly they dared touch the force-saturated hilt of his saber and triggered a dormant sensitivity...

 

And, if they are not the one, then they will have the best knowledge of who else has been lurking in his inner sanctum. He's prepared to do whatever's necessary to find out. Even if it means he has to tear them apart, to pay for his answers in blood. 

 

First however he must get them alone.

 

“On the contrary.” He says, his voice measured and calm through the mask’s filters as he focuses on the Officer in front of him. “Their work was exemplary. There is a matter on the mid-level that would benefit their attention, conference room D13. See that it is scheduled immediately for...”

 

The words are accompanied by a gentle push of his powers. He’s so used to wielding his thoughts like weapons that this delicacy takes every inch of his restraint, just pushing enough to loosen the woman’s tongue without her notice. Her thoughts are unfocused, an unsettled mass hazy with fear and almost cloying to the touch. Her gaze slackens and she nods.

 

“The technician is one of Galactech’s crew,” She says dazedly, head swaying ever so slightly as the data flickers in her hand. “Technician six-one-nine. I’ll see to it they’re assigned the task during their first shift.”

 

“Good.” He whirls on his heel, escaping the grim little office at last.

 

The night will be a long one as he bides his time until morning, until he can discover the face behind the feeling. It will require every scrap of his self-control. He heads to the meditation room to wait it out, there will be no sleep for him now.

 

Technician six-one-nine.

 

The designation tells him nothing. Every lackey on the ship has numbers instead of names.

 

It doesn’t matter. Morning will come soon enough.

 

Then he can see them for himself.

 


	5. Face to Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The confrontation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you to everyone still reading/commenting - you guys are making my life! :D  
> And mega-thanks (ofcourse) to Rellie, who makes my stories better, my hair shinier, and my wardrobe 75% more nerdy :P

 

The headache gets worse the closer she gets to the conference room, growing sharp edges as it pounds at the base of her skull.

 

Maker she wishes she’d thought to stop by the med-bay before her shift, to take something for the pain. Maybe after her work is done she’ll call in, if it hasn’t fixed itself by then of course.

 

To add insult to injury it’s colder than ever today, she pulls her scarf up tight around her face to ward off the chill as she searches for the door she needs. Her mind is already rushing ahead, disassembling the system schematics for a mid-level conference room; three data ports, two terminals, a holoprojector and a comm system. All standard fare. It shouldn’t be too hard to find the problem.

 

She’s working out the logistics of clocking out early without Vahna’s notice, so she can get her meds without missing lunch, when the door finally wooshes open.

 

She takes three steps in before she realizes she’s walked straight into her nightmare.

 

_He’s waiting for her._

 

Kylo Ren is standing _right there,_  right in front of her, eclipsing the rest of the room with the breadth of his shoulders. A menacing statue dressed in black. She's so close she can smell the faint trace of ozone that clings to him from his plasma blade, the one sitting dormant at his waist, complete once more. For a second she’s back in her vision, in the forest, frozen in terror. But then the door clicks shut behind her and she remembers where she is.

 

Everything Vahna has taught her flashes in her mind as she stands there, florescent bright but as insubstantial as smoke. She knows that she should bow her head, offer her humblest apologies for intruding and back out of there as quickly as she can. But she _doesn’t._  She can’t. Muscles locked tight as her voice fails her completely.

 

All she can do is stare at him in horror.

 

“It’s you.” The words are impossibly low through the mask. They bypass her ears entirely, travelling directly down her spine instead and landing like a lead weight in her stomach.

 

Her heart jumps, threatening to break her ribs as it pounds desperately against them.

 

 _He knows_.

 

Somehow he has discovered her insubordination, her over-active curiosity, and now he’s come to exact payment from her for daring to disturb his sanctuary. This is how it ends for her. A thousand miles away from home in the desolation of space. For a moment the terror threatens to overwhelm her, to send her spiraling into the raw void of fear, of regret over the things she'll never get to do. The life she'll never live.

 

Then she hears it.

 

The still, small petulant voice in the back of her head. The one that kept her sane on a planet that should have destroyed her.

 

 _Oh well_ , it says recklessly as she makes peace with any god who will have her, _at least I’ll go out with a bang. It’ll make for a good story._

 

The thought steadies her. She squares her shoulders, chin tipped back defiantly as she prepares to meet her fate head on. Eyes lifting across that final stretch to meet his gaze through the mask.

 

If she’s going to die here, she’ll do it standing tall.

 

-

 

She is not what Ren has been expecting.

 

When the door opens he almost thinks he has the wrong person. The technician is small, shapeless and entirely non-descript in the standard navy uniform, a filthy beige scarf wrapped tightly around her face. He wouldn’t have glanced at her twice on the ship’s deck. But then he feels it. The familiar strange aura that surrounds her, the crude shield that does an adequate job of blocking her mind from his touch. He pushes against it, sliding along it’s edges in search of a weakness but it holds firm.

 

He looks at her again, taken aback.

 

He can see now that, despite her appearance, there is nothing insignificant about her gaze. Her eyes are bright hazel and it no longer matters that her mind is cloaked to him, he can read her every thought in them as clearly as if she’d spoken them aloud. He watches the terror rise as she first takes notice of him. Shades of fear dancing across her irises only to be swallowed at the last second by a rash, heady look of defiance. Her spine straightens as she meets his gaze as an equal, belying the terror he can still feel beating in her chest.

 

She’s not what he’s been expecting at all.

 

He approaches, hand tightening as he wraps his power around her like a cloak. Stilling her in place so he can better look at her. A compulsion strikes him, soul deep and searing, and before he knows what he’s doing he’s reaching for her. Determined to see what lies beneath the rag she’s wearing over her face. She flinches violently at the approach, horror once more first and foremost in her gaze and he pulls back. Leaving her be for now.

 

Her shield wavers at the approach and, for just a second, he catches a fragment of her thoughts. She thinks he has come for her because of her misconduct in his quarters, her rash curiosity.

 

_She doesn’t know._

 

The realization floors him. She doesn’t realize what she is, what she possesses. He almost can’t believe it.

 

“You don’t know.” He stares at her in wonder, head tilting at the puzzle she presents. “Tell me who you are.”

 

For a minute he thinks she won’t answer, reticence and fear clouding her features. But then the scarf moves and she speaks.

 

“Technician Six-One-Nine.” She offers her rank like a shield, eyes now fixed on a spot just over his shoulder. He can hear the tension in her voice even through the fabric. “Galactech Crew. Work Order 0786.”

 

“No.” He can’t help but lift his hand again, gently pulling the fabric free and releasing the rest of her face to his gaze at last. A small, sharp countenance with defiance set in the straight line of her nose and fear turning the edges of her mouth. “Tell me who you _are_.”

 

Her mouth opens, lips parting instinctively and he gets another glimpse into her mind. A seething, bitter wave of emotion burning through him as she once more stares fire into his eyes. She bites the thought off, her jaw tensing as she fights back the words, leaving him wondering what it was she would have said if she’d gone unfiltered.

 

“Nobody.” She says at last, voice hard and tight. She’s boiling over with emotion, so angry and afraid of him she can barely speak.

 

He can’t fathom why, he has no memory of her. No recollection of harming her at any point. The fact she is this affected by him when he has done nothing to provoke her unsettles him.

 

“You’re so afraid of me.”

 

Her eyes widen and for a moment he’s drowning in her righteous indignation.

 

“Wouldn’t you be,” She says before she can stop herself, “If you were being threatened by a creature in a _mask_?”

 

He steps back. That’s it then. The mask. He reaches up for the release, the familiar whirr of the mechanics sounding too loud in the still air. Her shields waver again and he’s lost in her horror, the heady rush of her anticipation, as he reaches up and pulls the offending article away.

 

There is nothing between them now.

 

-

 

Rey has never felt this helpless before.

 

Not in her entire life of struggling to survive, in all the years of indentured servitude to Unkar Plutt.

 

She can’t move. Her body no longer her own as he holds her with a thought, as if she were a rag doll instead of a person. Her skin still burns where his leather-gloved hands have pulled her scarf away, heart thundering inside her ears at the strangely intimate gesture.

 

His power is everywhere, a noiseless hum that clings to her like a second skin, pushing and pulling at her mind with invisible fingers.

 

He wants to know who she is. The detail seems pointless, he surely plans to kill her, but she has the perverse urge to answer him truthfully anyway. To spit her past in his face. She is Rey from the Deserts. She can rebuild a shield generator one handed with her eyes shut. She can fly a hundred ships she’s never even seen. And she has never, ever, been afraid to fight back against anyone in her life.                                                                                                                             

 

The words falter on her tongue, washed away by bitter taste of reality.

 

“Nobody.” She says at last. He doesn’t deserve her stories.

 

The mask looms closer still. It’s all she can see, shiny black and chrome and inhuman. “You’re so afraid of me.”

 

She has the strangest urge to laugh.

 

“Wouldn’t you be if you were being threatened by a creature in a mask?” The words are out before she can stop them. Borderline suicidal.

 

His eyes bore into her like weights. If he even has eyes under there. A shudder runs through her as she remembers the gossip she’s heard below deck. _He’s just a skull beneath the mask, nothing but bones and melted flesh._

 

He reaches up and a sick pang of curiosity burns through her, mingling with the fear fuelled adrenaline that rushes through her veins instead of blood.

 

She forgets how to breathe as the mask disengages and he drags it off, casting it aside with a metallic thunk. Looking at her at last with his own eyes.

 

 _Human_ eyes.

 

She bites down hard on the inside of her cheek, tasting blood. She will not give him a reaction. Will not let him know that the human face beneath the mask has changed everything she thought she knew about the feared leader of the Knights of Ren. He looks so… normal. Sensitive even. A long, pale face with an aqualine nose and an almost gentle mouth. Smattered with freckles.

 

Monsters shouldn’t have freckles. That wasn’t in the stories.

 

He comes closer and the invisible weight that’s holding her slackens enough that she can move her head. Following his movements as he peers at her like she’s a particularly interesting problem to be solved. As if, if he could, he would dismantle her like an engine, piece by piece, to see how she works.

 

It rankles.

 

“Will you tell me now?” He sounds different without with the mask. The words are still measured, metered, but the loss of the metallic grate softens them.

 

She swallows hard.

 

“I’m technician six-one-nine.” She repeats, certain she’s passed straight through fear and into the no-man’s land of insanity on the other side. How has she come to this? She can taste the edge of desperation in her mouth as she continues. “My name is Rey, just Rey, and I’m a member of the Galactech crew fixing data cables onboard. Before that I was a scavenger on Jakku. I’m a... a nobody.”

 

He holds her gaze for one impossibly long moment, as if taking the full measure of her soul with his eyes alone.

 

“Show me.” He says at last, the words fuelled with a quiet urgency she cannot comprehend. “Let me in.”

 

She frowns, not understanding what he means until she feels the insistent weight of his power against the edge of her consciousness. The pain in her head has lessened now, the sensation manifesting instead as a spectral touch. Gentle but firm as he seeks entry into her mind.

 

She wishes she had some guiding light for what's going on. For why this is happening to her. The vision, the feelings, none of it makes any sense to her, a slideshow of horrors she seems incapable of escaping from.

 

In the adventures she imagines for herself she often brushes danger. Feeling the second-hand thrill of it, of being chased, being at the mercy of some nebulous villain only to strike back at the last second and save the day. But now, faced with the reality of the situation, her options are much more limited. She has no light-sword or blaster. No cavalry coming to back up her maverick play.

 

It is just her, alone, in trouble. And the overwhelming part of her mind would very much like to go back to fixing data cables instead, certain she will never complain about the repetitive task again if she survives this.

 

She falters as he pushes again at her mind. More insistent now. She doesn’t want to. Every cell in her body is screaming at her not to let him in, not to let him invade the only place that has ever truly been hers alone. But her survival instincts are stronger than her fear. And, if it will prove she’s telling the truth, if it will pull him away and release her from this endless, terrible confrontation, she’ll do it.

 

“ _If I do_ ,” she says at last, voice only wavering a little as she holds her head up high. “If I show you I’m telling the truth. Will you promise to let me go?”

 

He stares at her seriously for a handful of heartbeats and nods. “I promise.”

 

She squeezes her eyes shut, the fear building once more in her chest at this act of vulnerability. This unknown, unquantified invasion she will allow. Her nerves are on fire with it, a guilty pulse of anticipation lurking just below the surface.

 

She drops her shields.

 

Then he’s inside her mind. Everywhere all at once. Filling up her head until he’s all she can see, all she can smell and taste and feel. Her thoughts open to him like blossoms in the sun, the pervasive black velvet rub of his touch staining everything as he rifles through her memories like data files. It consumes her, this entire heady loss of self as her mind folds underneath him, and she can't bear it.

 

“You’re so lonely.”

 

The words are like ice down her spine and suddenly she remembers who she is again.

 

She pushes him out, throwing the weight of her power behind the action as she slams up every defense she can think of. She pushes too far. Overbalancing on the edges of her mind and falling into him. Into the swirling shadowed starburst of his head, his thoughts and fears assaulting her until she can feel his heart beating in her head. She sees fire, kind eyes and cruel words and death. The overbearing figure of Lord Snoke tearing into his mind like tissue paper. And the bright red thread of terror that’s holding him together

 

“You… you’re afraid.” She doesn’t realize she’s spoken until she hears the words in the air, ringing hollowly in her ears. Then, as suddenly as she’s stumbled in, the door is slammed shut and she is once again alone in her mind. And her body. She wavers as her legs become her own again. Too stunned by what has passed to run.

 

Certain there isn't anywhere safe left to run too.

 

-

 

Ren sees it all, flashes of everything. She’s right. She is a nobody. A scavenger from a waste planet with an insignificant past and a dull future. But she is strong, keen and clever. He sees the fight in her, tastes the hidden depths of her rage. He is marvelling over the loneliness that seems constantly on the edge of destroying her when the tables turn.

 

And she is inside him.

 

He can feel her, the untamed electricity of her power touching dark places in his mind he hasn’t looked at in a decade. Pulling at his memories and twisting herself into the core of his emotions. Her touch is confused. Erratic. But he knows she is seeing, _feeling,_ more than she has any right too.

 

“You - you’re afraid.” The words, the acknowledgement of his basest fears, have him pulling away like she’s struck him. He stumbles back, locking down every edge and corner of himself and regarding her with something that feels too much like horror for his liking.

 

White hot rage blooms in his chest at the intrusion. Although it is not directed at her, the nobody, the everything, it’s at himself. Another damning confirmation of his own weakness. He fights it back, struggling to reign in the whiplash of fury that threatens to sweep his thoughts away as he regains his footing. Now is not the time for recriminations.

 

“You’re strong with the Force, but unskilled.” He says, voice rough and restrained. “You don’t understand your powers.”

 

He can feel her confusion. She still doesn’t understand the magnitude of what has come to pass.

 

“I should take you to Master Snoke.” He says it almost on instinct. It is what he knows he should do, bring her before his Master and let him decide her fate. The words have a strange effect on her though, the fear he has sensed in her before this moment becomes a pale imitation of the terror that now grips her. He has already taken a half step away when she reaches out, seizing his arm before she can stop herself.

 

“No- Please-” The word stops him as surely as her hand. His skin burning beneath her touch. She releases him, realizing what she’s done but refusing to look away. For the first time he can hear true desperation in her voice, coated with a self-loathing he recognizes all too well. “Don’t.”

 

The plea stills him. Her eyes are shining in abject terror at the thought of it. He's torn. He has always sought his Master’s council on matters such as this, he has no illusions of his place. He is the right hand, Snoke is the head. But this girl has awoken something in him he has not felt in a long time. He is _curious._ Intrigued by the contradiction her mind presents and intoxicated by the untamed possibilities of her powers. She is a blank slate, a powerful supplicant he could mould to his will, instill in her his teachings.

 

A true apprentice of his own.

 

“I’m nobody.” She says again, desperately, truthfully. Looking at him less as a monster than a man. “I just want to go back to my job and survive. It’s what I do.”

 

She doesn’t realize there can be no going back. He raises a brow, the path now clear to him.

 

“It’s impossible. Your powers need direction or you’ll become a danger to yourself. To others.” He can see the words hitting every chink in her armour he needs them too. Despite her solitude he has felt how much she cares for others, her petty friendships with the other subordinates on the ship. The weakness is distasteful, but useful. “I can show you the ways of the Force.”

 

She falters and he has to stop himself from reaching out to her again, from taking the delicate curve of her chin between his fingers and lifting her face to the light. The compulsion is almost physical as he watches her decision play out across her features. Fear, anger, exhaustion. Stubborn pride.

 

“If I agree... you won’t send me to… _him?”_ The defiance is back, she is uncertain still but unwilling to show it. He nods, magnanimously. “Not like one of your Knights?”

 

“No.” He acknowledges, mind already toying with the possibilities she presents. “Not like them. I will train you alone.”

 

“I have to work.” She offers uncertainly, almost as an afterthought. “I won’t give up my job.”

 

Moments after pleading for her life and she’s already throwing out conditions like she holds the power in this negotiation. He lets her, lets her hang on to the comforting notion of control for a while longer at least. It will make things easier, and anyway, she will see the truth of the situation soon enough. “The evenings then.”

 

For a moment he thinks she might refuse, might run, which would make what is to come next a lot more unpleasant than it has to be. But her feet are steady even as she watches him like he’s a cobra that might strike at any moment.

 

Indecision wavers in her eyes, but there is something else there too. A curiosity of her own that fuels the spark inside of him.

 

“Fine.” She says at last, “I agree.”

 

 

 


	6. First Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's no handy etiquette book on this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh you guys are the best - I've told you that before right? Well damnit I'm saying it again! Thank you so much for your support :D  
> Rell- You save my writerly life on the daily. Mad props.

 

This is insanity. Complete insanity.

 

Rey has spent the day in a trance, moving on autopilot as she goes about her afternoon work. She’s on a three second delay every time someone speaks to her. It almost feels as if the events of the morning have been a fantasy, a hallucination she’s slipped into after inhaling too much carbon vapour. But she knows it’s not. She can still sense the weight of his power if she stretches her thoughts too far, a dark shadow at the edge of her consciousness. Feel the ghost of his fingers on her face. His arm under her hand.

 

The adrenaline has waned, thank the Maker, leaving her exhausted as she rewires a side panel in a slow part of the ship. The usually manageable task has become impossible and she installs the wrong fuse three times in a row. She can’t stop thinking about it. The meeting, the proposition, all of it. Of all the possibilities she’s imagined for her future this has never even been a shadow of an option for her.

 

The thought of what’s to come has settled like lead in her limbs. A chilling little undercurrent of anticipation that makes her usually quick hands clumsy. It is nothing compared to what she feels lurking beneath the fear though.

 

_Excitement._

 

It sickens her even as it tightens in belly with an electric pulse. This is not what she wanted, never what she wanted. But in a way… it is. She who has been nothing for so long is being given the opportunity of being more.

 

Powerful. Different. _Special._

 

The idea that she might one day wield a saber of her own, that she too could stop a person with her thoughts, _excites_ her. And she hates herself for it. Kylo Ren is no role model. She knows the stories, has seen his anger first hand. She doesn’t want to be a monster.

 

The guilt is overwhelming.

 

Maybe she can use her abilities for good, she thinks as the hours creep by. Maybe she can survive this with her light intact.

 

Time passes all too quickly and before she knows it she’s clocking off her shift and heading for the ‘fresher to wash away the day’s grime. Lingering in the luke-warm water as the evening looms ahead of her.

 

She puts a clean uniform on. No one has given her a guide on what to wear to her first force-training session with a noted dark lord, so she figures it will have to do. It’s not like she has many other choices really anyway.

 

He has told her to meet him in his quarters, a place she hoped never to return to.

 

It sits separate from the other officers rooms, an empty corridor at the very edge of the ship that no one has reason to go to. Except him. And now her too apparently.

 

She hovers stupidly in front of the door, hand half raised. Should she knock? Should she key in the code and let herself in? What’s the etiquette in this bizarre situation? She knows she has to do something soon, the corridor may be empty now but the longer she leaves it the more likely it is that someone might walk past. This isn't something she thinks she could explain to anyone.

 

She’s reaching out to knock when the door opens and she almost falls right in. He’s standing in the centre of the room, watching her as she hesitates on the threshold gaping at him like an idiot.

 

It’s hardly the most auspicious beginning to this nightmare. 

 

He gestures for her to enter and a wave of humiliation sweeps through her at being caught so unaware. She straightens her spine, pushing away the feeling as she marches into the room as if she owns it. Determined not to show weakness so early in the meeting. She can’t help it if her heart starts to race as the door shuts behind her though, that’s just sensible. Her fight or flight instincts have been working overtime these past few days.

 

It’s like walking into the eye of a storm. The air is thick with anticipation, she can feel the buzz of his power settling around her almost immediately. Wondering how she could have spent so long on the ship without ever truly noticing it. It’s everywhere, a pervasive reminder of his abilities.

 

He’s wearing the mask again and she shudders under its gaze. She‘d almost forgotten how unsettling its stare is, a black void where she knows his eyes should be. She is forced to once more remind herself that this is her only choice unless she wishes to face a worse demon. The evil from her vision. The thought isn’t as comforting as she hopes and she wonders again if it’s too late to run.

 

A soft sound whispers through the air, making her head jerk up. Metallic and low. He’s laughing at her. Reaching up he unlatches the mask and, ignoring her completely, moves to place it in a brazier. He walks past it, opening one of the doors that leads from the room and waving for her to enter.

 

“Is this better?” He asks as she hesitantly crosses the space between them, limbs uncomfortably jerky under his gaze. “Will you give up your thoughts of escape now?”

 

She flushes, stamping down on a spark of anger. He has read her thoughts like words on paper. She holds her shields tighter.

 

He’s looking at her with his own eyes now. She thought it would be preferable, the face of the man, but strangely it’s worse. Behind the mask it’s easy to remember what he is, a creature of darkness. A scary story whispered between underpaid workers to keep them in line.

 

Without it he is human. It scares her in a different way.

 

She fixes her gaze ahead and passes him on the threshold, so close she almost brushes his arm. Her breath catches, skin tingling at the near-contact as she steps into yet another empty room.

 

This one is different though, it’s not as big. There’s a mat on the floor, some kind of vulcanized rubber if she had to guess, hardly any gentler than the metal floor. A few staffs hang from the wall, a bench sitting to one side. There’s a towel lying across it still, and she realizes suddenly that this is his private training room.

 

She swallows hard.

 

“You try and suppress your rage.” He says, a quiet judgement as he sweeps in after her, lifting his cloak from his shoulders and casting it carelessly aside before turning to face her.

 

She holds her head high, fighting to keep the tremor from her jaw as she tries to acclimatize to being this near to him. Alone. He’s a livewire of electricity. Filling the room with his presence until she’s sure it’s shrunk down to the size of a broom closet around them.

 

“I don’t dwell on it.” She shrugs. Life is hard, she sees no point getting agitated over it. “It’s not exactly a healthy emotion.”

 

“But you have so much to be angry over.” He meets her gaze and for a minute she’s drowning in his darkness. “Your people left you to die. You have no friends. No future. Your life has been... meaningless.”

 

She flinches. Each word stabbing into the soft parts of her heart as he flays her with his calm, measured voice. She struggles against the red-hot wash of fury that rises in her bones at this casual dismissal of her.

 

“Does it frighten you,” He tilts his head, sounding genuinely curious. “That no one will mourn you when you’re dead?”

 

Her hands clench at her sides. Muscles tensed with anger. Raw, humiliating anger. She tries to say something, anything, but no comeback presents itself. She cannot deny the facts no matter how much she wants to. She said it herself. _She’s nobody._ The urge to strike him seizes her. To smash her fist into his calm, condescending face until she can’t see the freckles through the bruises.

 

He gives another soft laugh and she’s moving before she can stop herself. Hurling her entire weight behind the punch before she even realizes she’s thrown it.

 

He catches her arm easily and she stumbles over her feet as he uses her momentum against her. She falls hard, her shoulder taking the brunt of the landing and sending shockwaves of pain through her arm. She’d been right. The mat is no more welcoming than the metal floor would be.

 

“Don’t fight it.” His voice is low silk and stone as she drags herself to her knees. “Your anger can be your greatest strength. It can be your making, if you let it.”

 

She looks up at him, towering over her like a spectre, her blood boils with humiliation and hatred.

 

“This is your lesson?” She asks, voice dripping with disgust even as her face burns. “To hate?”

 

“No. To stop denying the truth to yourself.” He says offering her a leather-clad hand to help her rise, “To acknowledge your own weakness so you can destroy it.”

 

She ignores the offer. Hauling herself to her feet under her own steam instead and trying to roll the ache from her shoulder. She will have bruises there by morning. She glares at him, issuing a challenge with her eyes she’s not sure she can back up.

 

“I was expecting more from you.” She spits the words, disdain dripping from each syllable. “The stories are far more impressive.”

 

He gives her a long considering look and then he’s on her. A whirl of long limbs and well executed strikes. Her survival instinct kicks in and she only has a split second to wish she had her staff before she’s defending herself. Hand-to-hand has never been her strong suit.

 

She deflects the first strike by dumb luck, using her size to duck under the long reach of his arm and slam her elbow into his ribs. He moves too fast though. She tries to fend off a side swipe and unwittingly steps right into his path. His fingers close around her arm, jarring her already injured shoulder.

 

She moves to twist away, spinning herself back at the last minute to drive the hard wedge of her fingers into his throat but he stops her with a thought. His mind closing over hers like a steel trap, sharp knives of pain stabbing through her shields. She loses her balance, a moment’s hesitation that makes all the difference as he firms his grip on her, his other arm wrapping around her ribs and holding her tightly in place. She struggles but before she can kick back, knock his legs from under him, he’s wrenching her arm up behind her. The pain is immediate, washing the thought from her mind as he sends her gasping to her knees.

 

He drops with her, his strength and power combining to immobilize her completely in his arms. She fights it, mind pushing against the lock he has on her but it’s to no avail. He’s toying with her. The harder she fights, the tighter it seems to get until she’s incoherent with rage. Pain and hatred and humiliation pulsing like tar in her veins.

 

“Do as I say.” He says, voice urgent, breath hot against her neck. Her skin burns every place it meets his. “Submit to my teachings and you will never feel this way again. Loss, loneliness, they will become distant memories to you.”

 

She stills, trying to make sense of the words over the pounding of blood in her ears. The unsteady ragged gasp of her breath.

 

“You will never feel helpless again. I swear it.”

 

She closes her eyes, sucking in a deep breath that feels like ice in her lungs. Like it’s the first real breath she’s taken in days. Sensing her acceptance he loosens his hold. Releasing her from the weight of his power. He pulls away from her, stepping back until only the memory of him remains, clinging to her with the lingering heat of his touch.

 

When he offers her his hand this time she takes it. Small fingers slipping easily into his oversized palm, still burning at the contact. She lets him pull her to her feet.

 

She may hate him for what he has done today, what he has shown her, but she wants what he’s offering far too much to turn away.

 


	7. Miscommunication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Journeys are taken, some are planned, some are really -really- not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to seriously again thank everyone who chooses to comment on this story - it honestly keeps me writing! So thanks guys!  
> And Rell - your betaing skills are second only to your writing skills, which are second only to your face in terms of greatness.

The stones are icy beneath his knees, frost slicked and broken. The coldness seeping through to his bones.

 

Ren welcomes it. The pain helps keep his mind steady. Empty.

 

“There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?” The voice of his master echoes across the far reaches of the galaxy. It doesn’t matter that the figure that towers over him is nothing more a holoprojection, the power remains constant. A suffocating cloak of darkness he has always welcomed.

 

Today is different. Today he has something he must keep hidden. He flattens his thoughts into a still lake, exhausting every inch of his power to ensure that only the things he wishes to be seen ripple across it’s surface. A reflection of what his Master has come to expect of him. Ren’s supplication, the steady beat of his rage, the fear that holds him together.

 

“I have.” He says. It is the truth. His Master need not know that he has found its source.

 

“It intrigues you.” Supreme Leader Snoke nods. It takes everything Ren has to keep the lake steady. To keep his secrets far beneath it’s surface where Snoke will not see them. “As well it might. But we must not be distracted. Not when we have come so close to finding Skywalker, there will be time enough after.”

 

“Yes Master.” He bows his head further. Nose practically scraping the frozen stone. “I will not fail you.”

 

He keeps his mind empty for an hour after. It’s not until he is back on the shuttle, hurtling away from Starkiller Base, that he finally allows the image to slip. The meeting has been a short one, a progress report more than anything. There is new intel on the location of the last piece of the map they seek. Nothing substantial enough to pursue yet, but whispers he has faith will deliver the results they need before too much longer has passed. Hux has given his own report, the base’s construction is moving at a pace now too. All in all it has been uneventful.

 

And yet he can never before remember feeling so depleted. Once he gives himself permission to feel, the emotions crash over him like a wave. He knows he will be at half-capacity for the rest of the day, the power he has exerted to clear his mind has drained him of his strength. It doesn’t matter. He has escaped with his secrets intact. Shielded himself from the most powerful being in existence.

 

Guilt bites at him, sinking sharp fangs into his chest at the thought that he has dared to keep things from his Master. His saviour. But behind it sits a heady taste of… pride. He is growing stronger, and, when he has made her strong too, he can bring his apprentice before Snoke with impunity. Show him how far he has come.

 

In the meantime Rey is his and his alone. Something in his chest tightens at the thought, a wicked little thrill of heat sparking in his veins. She is keen to learn, but wary. Stubborn as the sands of her home planet as she circles the darkness he offers. Still unwilling to give herself fully into his power.

 

In the seven days he has been training her he has yet to do much to diminish her lightness. She still clings to her ridiculous sense of hope. It defies explanation, she has experienced the cruelties of the galaxy far worse than most.

 

He shakes his head. He will break her of it soon enough, hope serves no purpose. Only action does. And in the meantime he can take comfort in the deep well of anger she harbours in the far reaches of herself. A place she is wary to tread. If she allows him, he can show her the power in her darkest emotions. Make them beautiful.

 

He stares through the glass into the reaches of the cosmos, waiting for the Finalizer to appear. Impatient for their lesson to begin. They haven’t sparred since that first day, although he knows she itches for it. He has been working to shape her mind, teaching her to stretch her senses. To hold her shields without damaging her mind. Which is all well and good but he knows she yearns for more, impatient for him to teach her of the physical weight of her powers. Sometimes he catches her gaze lingering at his waist when she thinks he doesn’t notice, focused on the lightsaber that fascinates her so. Feels the frisson of excitement that races over her spine as she thinks of it.

 

Soon.

 

Not today though. No, today will be spent in quiet meditation, his head aching from the effort he has already spent.

 

It will take time to mould her fully, to train her into his true agent.

He plans to enjoy every second of it.

 

-

 

Despite everything that has happened to her in the past few days, Rey has discovered one depressing truth about her life. The world doesn’t have time to stop and let her catch up.

 

Life must go on.

 

She’s up to her eye-teeth in data-cables, another day, another corridor that needs rewiring. She’s gotten better at concentrating on her work, no longer fumbling through every job as she had for the first day or two. Now she goes to a still place in her mind where her hands can work without her input, letting her dwell on more interesting things.

 

She now knows that the Force is real. She has heard stories of it for almost her whole life, whispers that spread from one of the sacred villages across the Goazon from her little home. But the details have always been vague, metaphors about some nebulous magic power she never fully understood.

 

It was one of the first things she asked _him_ about _._

 

Kylo Ren is always ‘ _him_ ’ in her thoughts.

 

She doesn’t call him Master, certain she will never call anyone Master. To his face she says ‘Lord Ren’ but it’s usually with a snort in her voice, the smallest taste of defiance that he chooses to overlook. Normally with a scowl.

 

He told her of the power that binds the universe, an invisible presence that few are given access too. She asked him what it meant, to be Jedi or Sith.

 

The Jedi were afraid of the power, he had said, face oddly grave. Almost bitter. So they labelled anyone who defied their strictures, who sought to know it’s entirety, as ‘dark’. Those who escaped their clutches were vilified. He tells her that the true knowledge of the force needs no labels.

 

She shuddered, suddenly remembering the nickname she has heard him called in the mess hall. _Jedi Killer._ The rumours she had heard of what he had done to them, the hunting. The fire.

 

“Is that why you did it?” She asked, before she could think better of it. “Is that why you killed them all?”

 

He frowned at her and told her to get back to her meditation. She took it for a yes.

 

The darkness in him still frightens her. But not half as much as the darkness she has found in herself. Her mind is not the safe haven she has always assumed it to be. There is a violence there she has kept buried from herself for a long time, a seething hatred at the universe for what it has done to her. At the people who left her. Those who kept her down when all she wanted was to _survive._

 

He has shown her that.

 

Despite her fears she can’t help the spark of anticipation that has taken up permanent residence in her belly. A tiny black butterfly that dances every time she thinks about her evenings. She’s almost looking forward to the lessons now. She can no longer deny how much she wants the things he can give her. He has offered her everything. The chance to be _more._

 

To be powerful.

 

Each success is a thrill greater than any she’s known, greater than flying.

 

The lessons come with a price though, she hasn’t slept properly in days.

 

She finds she doesn’t care. She can sleep when she’s dead.

 

“Rey, finish up. We’re needed in the main hangar asap.”

 

She drops the magwrench she’s holding with a yelp as the voice drags her from her trance, For someone supposedly gifted in the Force it’s still obscenely easy to sneak up on her. She blames the tiredness.

 

“Huh?” She shoves her head out of the wall, finding Lim waiting in the corridor shifting anxiously from foot to foot. “My shifts nearly over?”

 

“Yeah, well they’ve switched us all out.” He looks more nervous than usual, hands twitching as he hurries her along. A dark weight settles in her stomach. “There’s been a major data malfunction on the base on Rattatak and they’re sending us all down to fix it.”

 

She sucks in a tight breath. The trip to Rattatak will take time and she has little enough of that left before her lesson. She doubts _he_ will look kindly on her if she misses it. Tying off the loose ends she reaches for his mind, like he has taught her to do. There’s nothing. He is still off-ship.

 

Tightening up the last cable, she pulls herself out of the hole. Lim helps her lift the panel and fix it back in place. She wonders how he does it alone, his arms are like matchsticks. She’s amazed he’s survived this long on board. She’ll be amazed if she lasts much longer if she doesn’t get a message to her missing teacher before she leaves.

 

He is not known for his understanding.

 

“There’s something I have to do first.” She says as she hoists her bag over her shoulder. She will run to his quarters before they leave, write a note explaining her absence and hope he isn’t too displeased with her. A wave of annoyance strikes her at the thought, cutting through the anxiety she can feel rising inside her, she didn't ask for this after all. “I’ll just be a minute-”

 

“It can wait.” She’s cut off by Vahna, who has emerged from the corridor behind them at a fast clip. Catching them both smartly by the arm she frog-marches them towards the hangars. “The main system is down completely and there’s an inspection tomorrow, the shits really hit the fan on this one.”

 

Rey can do nothing but panic as she’s pulled through the ship and shoved on board the shuttle. Her mouth opening a dozen times to say something, anything that will get her off this mission without being fired. Nothing comes out. One look from Vahna and she knows if she cries off she’ll be terminated immediately and escorted from the ship.

 

She’s certain Lord Ren would like that far less.

 

-

 

The girl is missing.

 

Ren’s head is pounding, soul weary with the after effects of the day. A heavy tension lingers in his bones after the audience with the Supreme Leader. Minutes have passed by the handful, becoming hours, and she has still not arrived.

 

The darkness builds in him as he stretches out his power, the effort costing him dearly. His head throbs as he searches for her. The ship is noisy today. Crowded with voices. The anxiety is palpable as he sifts through them for the mind he seeks. The mind he cannot find.

 

Rage burns through him at her absence. At her _betrayal._

 

He has risked everything for her. Deceived his Master, defied his Order, staked the foundation of his very world on her training, and the treacherous girl has run from him.

 

 _It was surely only a matter of time,_ he thinks bitterly to himself as the anger spreads through his limbs, invigorating him. She has always been upfront about considering him a monster after all.

 

He feels something seize in his chest, tight and hot. For all his power he has been wrong about her. It was not excitement he felt beneath her shields, it was disgust. He can’t think, can’t breathe with the anger it unleashes in him. A white-hot burn of humiliation at being so utterly deceived by her.

 

Unthinkingly he ignites his lightsaber, the whine of the blade a familiar friend in the darkness. He turns his anger outwards, scarring his frustration into the walls of the meditation chamber. Venting himself into each burning stroke as the thoughts tear at him. The failure. The rage is lava in his veins.

 

He sees her face in the glowing remnants of the hole he’s torn through the wall’s outer casing, sharp and stubborn. Hazel eyes flashing in the darkness as she fights him on every lesson.

 

He cannot allow this.

 

He shudders as the realization sweeps him, taming the anger that has consumed him. His saber powers down in his hand.

 

He cannot allow her to escape him. Not now he's had a taste of her. He will hunt her through the galaxy if he has to, tear her world apart until she submits to him.

 


	8. The Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stories are swapped, excuses made and the prodigal apprentice returns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My forever thanks go to you beautiful commenters - you are the best motivation a writer could ever ask for! Please never change <3
> 
> Rell - you saved my ass at least 3 times this week. I need to send you a fruit basket when this fic is done. :P

 

 

Rey has spent so many weeks on the ship that it’s not until they’re stumbling out onto the planet’s surface that she realizes how much she’s missed the ground. It doesn’t even matter that she only gets to stand there for a second, sucking in the atmosphere by the lungful. The air is arid, dry but blessedly unfiltered. She’s got solid ground beneath her feet once more and moonlight on her face, and for a second, just a second, she can forget everything else.

 

Then they’re being hustled inside by a squad of antsy storm troopers and antsier officers. The base is carved right into the red rock that seems to cover the entirety of Rattatak, a sprawling network of tunnels that lead to the main room.

 

Inside it looks the same as any other comm-center. Only messier. A world of beeping machines and tangled wires, the only difference is the thick layer of anxiety that hangs in the air. The regular crew practically vibrating with fear, and more annoyingly, irritation. Rey throws up her shields and gets to work.

 

Some idiot has disconnected the main data line without using a sensor-jammer and data is leaking like a flood. It takes the whole team to rewire the system, carefully trying to salvage what they can without dumping any more memory files. She knows as soon as she sees the read-out that there’s no chance of her getting back in time for her lesson, not even close. They’ll be here for hours.

 

Uneasiness settles inside of her, a background thrum of tension that’s only highlighted by the pang of disappointment she feels at missing the lesson. She pushes it down, embracing her annoyance at the situation instead. It steadies her hands as she works.

 

“I hear-” Lim whispers around the four hour mark, the crew getting a welcome few minutes to rest while the system reboots. “That this base was visited by Commander Ren last night. They’re saying he ripped apart the main frame in a fit of rage over something.”

 

Rey sighs before she can stop herself, wiping sweat from her eyes. “It wasn’t him.”

 

She says it with such certainty that the others turn to look at her. She flounders for a second, searching for an excuse. She can hardly tell them she knows it wasn’t him because she was in his quarters until the early hours, trying to hone her mystical mind powers. That would not go over well.

 

“I, uhm, over-heard some officers talking this morning.” She says lamely, deflecting the curious stares being aimed at her. “They said they saw him in the upper corridors, causing problems for General Hux again.”

 

The answer goes over well and Jay nods sagely. He has told them a hundred stories about the feud between the First Order’s dark enforcer and head general. He says it started when Hux was denied entry into the Knights of Ren, on account of him being not powerful enough. Rey doubts him.

 

“It wouldn’t of been him anyway.” Vahna says, wiping her hands on her overalls with one eye on the screen. She’s not shushing them back to work for once, obviously as annoyed with this mission as the rest of them. “Commander Ren’s tantrums are more violent. This is just,” her eye twitches ever so slightly, “stupidity.”

 

Now that permission has officially been given by their leader to talk, Zalya is quick to chip in. Leaning forward with a barely suppressed grin. “I heard a new story about him yesterday.”

 

“From Technician Seven-Four?” Yalza asks, eyes rolling. It’s well known that Zalya has a fondness for the good looking First Order Technician. Everyone’s already told her what a bad idea it is, fraternization is not looked kindly upon within the Order’s structure, but she persists with it anyway.

 

“So what if it was?” She glares, dark skin flushing red. Rey can feel the twin’s concentration ebbing and fights the urge to prompt her back on track. She’s even more curious about the stories now she’s met their subject in the flesh, struggling to keep her casual demeanour when the subject comes up. “Does it matter if I occasionally talk to an interes-”

 

“Get on with it, woman.” Jay cuts in for her. Thank R’iia.

 

“Fine.” Bridling ever so slightly at the interruption, Zayla lowers her voice and launches into the  story. “Apparently the reason why Lord Ren killed all the Jedis-”

 

“Burnt them alive-” Jay cuts in again. Rey wants to slap him this time, eager to hear what possible new tale this could be. Surely they have dissected every rumour by now.

 

“Yes, anyway! The reason why he hunted them and _burnt them alive_ is because...” Her voice drops even lower and Rey has to lean in to hear her now. Nonchalant act completely forgotten. “He was trained as _one of them._ ”

 

The words are a revelation.

 

“What?” She hears herself gasp, much to Zalya’s delight. She does so love a captivated audience.

 

“Yup.” Zalya continues smugly, enjoying the power the knowledge has given her. “He was schooled from childhood to be a Jedi by some corrupt old master. Supreme Leader Snoke rescued him from it, That's why Lord Ren is so loyal to him.”

 

Rey feels her eyes widen. She knows better than to read too much into the stories they tell, they have been wrong before after all. She’s seen it for herself in the distinctly unmelted face of her mentor. But something in this story has stuck itself between her ribs. _What if?_ Her mind says, _what if they’re right?_

 

She can’t help but think it would explain the strange bitterness in his voice when he’d told her about the Jedi before. There could be other explanations of course, a hundred different reasons, but something about this story rings true to her.

 

She almost thinks about asking him during their next lesson but shudders before she can finish the thought. It probably wouldn’t be her best idea. And anyway, after standing him up like this she’ll be lucky to get another lesson at all.

 

The system beeps and it’s back to work. She tucks the concerns away, Vahna shooing them back into place. There is still much to do.

 

Six hours pass before the system is fully restored. The base’s staff growing more and more anxious and irritable by the second until Rey can hardly block the feelings out anymore. She’s wearing it like a blanket, smothering her with the intensity of their emotions until she can taste their anxiety on her tongue. It becomes a leaden weight in her bones as she fights to finish her work, moving through quicksand.

 

The relief is tangible when they finally crawl back onto the shuttle. She’s far too tired to do much more than greedily drink in the planet’s surface from the window as they spiral away. With the base’s anxiety lifted she finds she can focus again. Wishing belatedly that she’d gotten to spend more time in the open air before they’d been shunted back into space.

 

She’s fantasising about a hot shower and her bunk when a heavy wave of anger crashes over her consciousness. Oh right. She’d almost forgotten about him. Her body tenses on instinct, the sudden wash of his power heralding her return like a funeral march. Her tiredness vanishes under the swell of it, irritation sparking over tightly-wound nerves as the Finalizer sails into view. Just as huge and intimidating as the first time she saw it. Even more so now, when she can feel what's awaiting her.

 

He’s _furious._ The feeling tightens in her stomach. The others don’t notice, too tired to pay much attention to her as her heart makes a desperate bid of escape her chest. They are blissfully ignorant of what is to come.

 

Stilling her suddenly shaking muscles she forces herself to remember that this mission was _not_ her idea. She has no control over where they send her. He may be Lord Kylo Ren, feared first son of the Order, but she’s Technician six-one-nine and she goes where she’s told to.

 

 _You don’t have to be._ The dark little corner of her mind whispers, the one that's sounding more and more like him by the day. _You have options now. You could be so much more._

 

She stamps it down. That is not the path she’s chosen for herself and she’ll be damned if she lets someone else, no matter how powerful, dictate her life to her. Besides, if she gives into him like that it'll be a slippery slope.

 

-

 

Ren’s course is decided. He’s halfway to the hangar, ready to take up his command shuttle and set off after her, when he stumbles.

 

Something sparks at the edge of his consciousness.

 

Drawing himself to a halt in the deserted corridor he clears his mind. He can sense her again, the bright-white pulse of her spirit flickering at the very edges of his reach. His heart stalls, stopping in his chest for one long moment as he focuses all of his strength on that dim little light. It grows brighter by the second.

 

Like a beacon.

 

He exhales sharply, struggling to comprehend the sudden rush that’s come over him. It chases out the worst of his rage, leaving the usually hollow place in his chest strangely… warm. He had been so certain she had abandoned him. _So certain._

 

Why has she come back?

 

Why did she dare defy him in the first place?

 

Some of the anger returns, chased by the burning curiosity it seems only she can inspire in him. Mouth firming he pushes forward, determined to know what has become of her.

 

-

 

Rey expects him to be in the hangar waiting for her when they arrive. He’s not, and the anger has faded now. A dull pulse instead of an all-encompassing roar.

 

It takes them five minutes to unload the ship, five long minutes during which she begins to believe she might’ve gotten away with it after all.

 

And then there he is, striding towards them like a wraith. Despite expecting him her breath still catches at the sight. She’s unused to seeing him like this, in the wild of the ship in full regalia. She’s almost familiar with his face, the length and breadth of it, the way his eyes narrow ever so slightly when she questions him, the curve of his mouth when she adequately completes one of his tasks.  The two freckles that sit just above his eyebrow that merge when he scowls at her. He never wears the mask in her training sessions.

 

The sight of him like this is enough to temporarily silence her irritation over his dramatic entrance.

 

The crew drops back, heads bowing immediately at his approach. Storm Troopers and technicians alike adopting the respectful pose. It’s not until she feels Vahna’s hand clawing at her arm that she realizes she must do the same. She jerks back as if she’s been electrocuted, head dropping like a stone.

 

The mask turns towards their leader but Rey can feel the weight of his attention through the black glass. He feels different today. The power not as suffocating, even if his frustration is. A familiar black silk shroud that telegraphs his displeasure as clearly as if he had spoken it.

 

“Tell me what’s going on here.” He demands, she can see the others flinch at the measured metallic voice. She hasn’t missed that either.

 

For a second Rey almost speaks, almost exposes all of her secrets to the crew in an indignant rant at her teacher. She bites her tongue. She will not expose herself like that, in this situation it’s their leaders place to reply.

 

“We are just returned from the Rattatak base, Commander Ren.” Vahna steps forward to take the spotlight, voice remarkably steady in the face of him. “We are pleased to report the data malfunction has been completely repaired and the site is ready for inspection at your convenience.”

 

Rey can tell he’s not listening, she can feel the insistent touch of his mind on hers and carefully, as he has been teaching her, she lets her uppermost thoughts rise outside of her shields.

 

It’s more of an impression than a coherent sentence. Lim telling her about the problem, Vahna making it clear that the trip was non-optional. A flicker of her disappointment at missing the lesson slips in too before she can stop it. She looks away. Not wanting to see his reaction.

 

“See that it’s dealt with in a more timely manner in future.” He says as Vahna finishes her speech. “I will not stand for this again.”

 

His power tightens around her for a moment, enveloping her. She gets a sharp sense of his desire she follow him before, like a shadow, he is gone.

 

Message received. She clocks off in double time, ignoring the others when they stop to dissect Lord Ren’s odd behaviour. Her fear has quickly transformed itself into irritation. Irritation that he almost outed her like that before her friends. Irritation that he dared to be so infuriated at her when she was only doing her job. Irritation over the fact he expects her to follow him all the way to the top of the ship when all she really wants to do is sleep.

 

By the time she gets to his quarters she’s worked herself up into a fury she has no hopes of controlling, no matter how suicidal it might be.

 

She punches the code in and marches in without invitation.

 

-

 

He can feel her approach like an oncoming storm. Now that she’s returned her power is impossible to ignore, pulsing with annoyance as she nears. He barely has time to pull the mask loose before the door is crashing open.

 

“What is your problem?” She’s shouting before she’s even crossed the threshold.

 

The vehemence of it takes him back. Her face is alive with emotion, eyes sparking furiously as she stomps into his room as if it’s hers.

 

“You are my apprentice. If I tell you to be somewhere, I expect you to be there.” He says after a long moment of silence. He had been so infuriated by her, so ready to drag her out of the hangar by force and demand an explanation. Now, faced with the intensity of her ire, the feeling fades completely.

 

It’s unsettling how pleasing he finds her like this. So confident, _alive._

 

“I was working a job _your_ Order gave me!” She throws her hands up in exasperation, but he can feel the rage beginning to wane as she sucks in ragged gasps of air. Obviously having run the entire way. “It’s not like I went off on a pleasure cruise.” She adds more quietly, stubborn to the last.

 

Something gnaws at him. Something like guilt. He fights it down as quickly as he feels it, raising his head instead and glaring at her imperiously. It is not his fault she was late. She has put him through hell these past few hours, quite unnecessarily. Her ridiculous need to keep working as a lackey here has his anger rising again.

 

“If you cannot handle the responsibility of your lessons then you should give up your pitiful _technician_ work.” He says with a sweep of his hand, her job becoming a sneer under his tongue. It’s ridiculous that she’s still keeping up the charade now she knows the true power he can give her. He fixes his gaze on her, willing her to submit. “Devote yourself fully to my teachings.”

 

“Really?” She says venomously, the muscles in her throat working as she swallows hard. It’s an odd reaction. “And how do you propose to explain that to the ship? To General Hux? Or do you expect to keep me here in secret like… like some sort of _pet_?”

 

The thought doesn’t displease him. For a split second he allows himself to imagine it, her always being here. Being able to focus properly on her skills, to give her training the attention it deserves instead of the short night hours they spend together. She would be a force to be reckoned with before long, then he could introduce her to his world fully. Let everyone see his dark apprentice.

 

Her tone makes it clear she will not allow it though. Not yet at least.

 

“Very well.” He says tightly, turning away from her to stride to the window. Suddenly needing space to think clearly. “We will start work on using your skills to influence other, weaker minds then. I will not tolerate this again.”

 

“I -” She sighs. “Can we talk about this tomorrow? I haven’t eaten in fourteen hours or slept in twenty seven.”

 

He is startled to realize she’s followed him, looking out over the stars with tired eyes. Her anger has almost entirely ebbed now, he can feel her shields slipping ever so slightly as fatigue weighs her down. Her mind is a distant cacophony of confused thoughts and feelings, the noise edging into his consciousness until it would be almost too easy to lean in and pick out the strands. He turns away, not looking any closer.

 

“Very well.” He nods. Speaking to her reflection.

 

“Great.” She snorts at his less than enthusiastic agreement. “Night then.”

 

She waves half-heartedly at him, stalking away towards the door. He watches her lift a hand to her head as she goes, feeling the waves of exhaustion clouding her usually bright powers.

 

“Good night.” He says as she steps through the door, although he knows she is almost out of hearing range. She pauses, looking back just long enough to throw him a half-smile. A real one. Eyebrows quirking like he’s done something to amuse her. Then the door closes and she’s gone.

 

Something in his chest tightens.

 


	9. Unfair Advantage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They play the cards they have and bluff the ones they don't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in two days AGAIN because you were all so lovely with your comments I managed to write in double time :P Thank you so much! <3
> 
> And Rell. Word Angel. You are.

 

“Again.”

 

Rey bites back a complaint and raises the training staff, driving through the form he has ingrained in her.

 

She strikes at the target again and again, sweat plastering her hair to her forehead as she hits the familiar blow points. Knee, ribs, wrist, head. Knee, ribs, wrist, head. Her muscles are burning from it.

 

It’s not that she isn’t glad she’s finally getting to do some real physical training. She is. She’s missed the rush of adrenaline that comes with being able to hit things with impunity, and he has let her use a staff which is even better. It has long been her weapon of choice. It’s just she never realized it would be so… repetitive. Hours pass in the same refrain, he teaches her a form and then watches her repeat it over and over again until her every nerve is screaming.

 

She takes comfort in the fact that he has allowed her to alternate her lessons at last, pushing her mental abilities one day and her physical the next. Although both seem to be equally as exhausting. And frustrating. She pushes onward with all she has, determined not to show weakness in front of him. To prove she deserves this chance.

 

It’s almost impossible to concentrate when he lurks over her like this, a constant weight at the back of her mind watching for every mistake. Every misstep. The physical drills are irritating but it’s the mental lessons she’s started to really dread.

 

He wants her to cross a threshold she never realized she had before. To mould others wills to her own, influence their thoughts with a touch of her mind. It seems so simple when he says it, a necessity of life, but she falters on the edge every time he pushes her. She balks at the idea of taking someone’s freedom from them like that.

 

She knows what it’s like to be without choices. After all, how many years did she spend under Unkar Plutt’s thumb struggling to scavenge enough to eat? Trapped by the spectral presence of a family she can’t remember?

 

It’s a conflict she has yet to resolve in herself. She wants this ability, this mastery of her powers. But she is loathe to take anyone else’s options away now, not if she doesn’t need to.

 

She can feel his frustration with her growing every lesson until it’s practically physical. The careful mask of his composure slipping, just for a second or two, and revealing something incredibly human underneath. Human, and irritated at her.

 

She shoves the thoughts back, it is a problem that can wait for tomorrow. Today she just has to survive the endless repetitive drills as he puts her through her paces.

 

On Jakku she had fought on instincts, nothing but her wits to guide her as she defended her home and livelihood. There was no training, only a desperate urge to survive. This is a far cry from that.

 

“Again.” He circles behind her, a shadow at the edge of her vision as he judges her technique. “Stop overthinking it. This should be like breathing to you.”

 

She grits her teeth and strikes again. Something dark rising within her as she hits for the sixth, seventh, hundredth time. She fights it down, he is doing this to rile her. A punishment for her unwillingness to take the next step in her training. Logically she knows this. She should be serene, graceful, land her blows without complaint. She should be calm.

 

“Again.”

 

Should. Grunting in frustration she strikes so hard the staff splinters in two. The broken end sailing clear across the room as she whirls on her heel with the other. Barely resisting the urge to plunge it into the irritatingly amused face of her teacher.

 

“Look at that, the staff broke.”  There are splinters in her palms, tiny spots of blood welling to the surface but she doesn’t really feel it.

 

She holds his gaze, she wants to _fight_ something. Give her frustrations form against a moving, breathing opponent who can distract her from the constant noise in her head.

 

-

 

Ren has felt her uncertainty for days.

 

She’s holding back, he can see it shifting in her eyes, feel it clouding her usually pin-sharp mind. The swell of her power sits right there, so close he could almost taste it if he wanted too and yet still she pulls back from it. Clings to an absurd system of morals she has constructed in her own head to limit herself.

 

Every effort he has made to push her across the threshold of her potential has been thwarted, he has been firm, gentle, coaxing and menacing in turn. Nothing has worked. If she keeps this up she will never become the student he needs. And he has realized since her absence that he does need her, this effort has become somehow integral to his future. A proof of his own mastery.

 

He has taken to wearing her down. Driving her harder than ever through the drills he knows she could master in a single repetition, forcing her to run them over and over as her mind fights itself over what is yet to come. Her rage rises, irritation sparking over the edges of his consciousness as he points out an invisible flaw in her footwork. Heating the edges of his mind as he demands another repeat.

 

And then another. And another.

 

He needs her to break.

 

To free herself from the hold she still has on her mind.

 

He’s pushing her through the movement for the hundredth time in as many minutes when she finally snaps. Literally. The training staff breaking in two in her hands. She turns on him, sharp edge clenched tightly in her fist as she glares up across the space between them.

 

“Look at that,” She bites the words out. The anger throbbing just below the surface of her shields, a ticking time bomb. “The staff broke.”

 

He sizes her up. The combative fury burning brighter than ever in her eyes as her whole body tenses under his gaze.

 

“So it did.” He waits. She’s so close to breaking now, her impulsivity undimmed in the passing weeks.

 

“Can’t I do something more _challenging_?” Her chin is thrust sharply in the air, barely able to repress the challenge in her voice as she glares at him.

 

Triumph blossoms in his chest. Her frustration has become palpable, the sharp bitterness of her anger biting at his shields. Keeping his face impassive he raises a brow at her. “You think you’re ready to spar with me then?”

 

A heartbeat. A flicker of uncertainty passes over her features and he can practically taste the adrenaline in her veins.

 

She nods sharply, stubbornness made flesh. “Yes.”

 

Bowing his head to hide the smile he crosses to one of the cupboards set against the wall and pulls out another staff. Not the wooden training kind he has given her every day until now, no this one has been forged from cortosis and ultrachrome.

 

She takes it, brow furrowing in confusion as she adjusts the cold metal in her hand. Weighing it experimentally before sliding into position.

 

He can see the sweat beading along her brow, the tired twitch that jumps in her jaw as she steels herself for the fight. Waiting for him to take out a staff of his own.

 

He draws the saber from his waist and watches the realization seize her.

 

“Very well,” He says at last, igniting the blade. “If you’re sure.”

 

Her eyes widen, horror dancing under the reflection of the bright red light.

 

He feels a savage little twist of victory.

 

“Isn’t that a little… unfair?” She asks, still unwilling to show her reluctance at the sudden turn in events even as she takes a half-step back.

 

Did she think this would be easy? She has been testing him for weeks. Fighting him over her training, fighting herself over her decision to submit to it. He needs to remind her of her place as his apprentice. That his guidance should be first in her mind.

 

“There is no such thing as fair or unfair.” He says, repeating a phrase he has heard himself more times than he can count. “There is only power, and those too weak to use it.”

 

Swinging his saber in a wide arc he revels in the fear he can feel surging behind her shields, her anticipation mixing sweetly with his own as he sweeps the blade down.

 

-

 

She blocks the first strike on instinct, unwilling to let her footing slip as she launches herself head first into this new, terrifying challenge.

 

Lord Ren apparently doesn’t believe in doing things by halves.

 

She bites down hard, swinging the staff around and letting the movements flow through her without thought.

 

The staff must be made of something intense because it blocks his blade instead of melting beneath its touch, each parry jarring her right down to the bone. She has heard of such things before but never thought to see it for herself.

 

He’s pushing her back on the defensive, her muscles already fatigued from the day’s work and the hours of training. She firms her jaw, she will have to break this pattern soon if she wants to win.

 

And she _wants_ to win.

 

She doesn’t think she’s ever wanted anything more.

 

Sweat drips into her eyes, threatening to blind her as she feints back before swinging around to the left. The sound of metal and plasma clashing loudly in the air as they spar, sparks showering where they meet.

 

The fear is there, the terrifying realization that once more she has thrown herself right into the deep end without thought of the consequences. But she finds it soon swallowed by vicious, joyful action. She wanted a fight and she has more than got one.

 

It’s strange how his strokes change, hard, ugly and uncompromising one moment, and then graceful looping movements the next, teasing and skilled. She wonders if she’ll ever fight like that, wield plasma instead of chrome. The thought takes her out of the moment just long enough for him to draw first blood, his saber grazing the flesh of her shoulder. It’s shallow, designed to warn not maim, to remind her of her place. He’s holding back. For a moment she can’t feel it, the shock of the injury numbing her flesh but then it begins to _burn._

 

 _Use the pain,_ the dark little voice that sounds too much like him says as humiliation dances in her veins. _Channel it._

 

Firming her grip she does. Redoubling her efforts as he strikes again, a matching burn on the other shoulder that fuels her fury.

 

He’s toying with her. Light brushes designed to humiliate her. To prove how unworthy she is of his teachings. Weak.

 

The burn becomes a pulse, an urgency to win that grips her in a black fury. It sweeps through her, reinvigorating every cell until her muscles are no longer tired - they’re _singing_. She has never been weak. She will never be weak. She presses forward, getting him on the back foot at last as she wields her staff like a saber. The next strike is hers, the sharp end catches the edge of his bicep and tears a scrap of skin and fabric loose.

 

A flicker of surprise dances across his face, a sharp pulse in her head. Her mind latches onto the feeling with a single minded determination she hasn’t known before. The darkness rises up in her and sinks knives into his mind as she surges forward again. Another strike, another cut.

 

The surprise has become something else in his eyes, something she can’t read. She can tell his intentions though, clear as if he’d spoken them aloud as he strikes back. He moves to disarm her, a hard blow that will force the weapon right out of her hands and end things easily in his favor. That will prove him right.

 

The darkness roars.

 

Spinning the staff above her head one-handed she throws out her other hand, shoving him back with a thought. He stumbles, back hitting the wall as she pushes her advantage.

 

Before he can recover she smashes the saber from his hand, it clatters to the floor, inert, and she presses the sharp edge of her staff into his jaw. Stepping into his space until she has trapped him against the wall.

 

“Yield.” She gasps, lungs working double time as she adjusts to the sudden stillness. Her skin tingles with the aftereffects of exerting so much power, she feels almost drunk with it.

 

She savours his expression, the slight widening of his eyes as she presses up on her toes to draw level with him. He’s looking at her like it’s the first time he’s ever seen her.

 

 _See._ Her heart is thundering, rolling over itself in elation as she holds his gaze. _See how much more I can be._

 

-

 

The cold press of metal against his throat is a shock. She has turned the Force on him without even seeming to realize it, pushing him back with a wave as her sharp thoughts cut against his shields. His hand still stings from the jab that sent his saber loose. The power is tangible, a dark halo that pulses around her in the low light.

 

He is not ashamed of this defeat.

 

He was careful, holding back the weight of his powers so as not to harm her more than necessary. Just enough to prompt her into remembering why she accepted his offer, of what she could be. But he had underestimated her. The darkness that rose in her has been an unexpected triumph.

 

He has been right about her potential. Right about the strength that sits deep in her bones. He is creating a worthy apprentice, one just as glorious as he has ever imagined.

 

“Wasn’t that a little… unfair?” He asks, voice lower than he anticipated. She has trapped him between the warm press of her body and the cold steel of the wall, seemingly unwilling to give up the ground she has taken now. He finds himself swallowing hard at the unexpected contact.

 

“I thought there was no such thing as _fair or unfair”_ She reminds him, face lit with triumph. He can see the lingering trace of power still dancing in her wide pupils, pulling her mouth into a bright beaming smile. Suddenly he finds he can no longer take her proximity. She’s too bright.

 

He reaches up, pushing the the staff away from his jugular.

 

She lets him, jumping back at last as if she’s only just realized how close they’ve been standing. He watches her as she ducks her head, taking two steps away and retrieving his saber from the floor. For a split second he feels uneasy, wondering if she will finish what she started. If she perhaps means to end him after all.

 

Then she looks up and the feeling dies. It isn’t rage in her eyes now, or fear. It’s pride. She’s practically glowing with it.

 

“Here.” She holds out the hilt to him. “Lord Ren.”

 

There’s no derision in her voice now. He takes it, heart suddenly racing again as their fingers brush. A strange reaction to such a small intimacy.

 

“Thank you, apprentice.”

 


	10. Temptation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey learnt nothing from Persephone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Thank you so much to everyone sticking with me on this! Things get a little bit... juicier this chapter ;-)   
> Rellie, my ever-thanks for pulling me back from the dark side one too many times :P )

  
  


There’s a game the stormtroopers play when they’re on duty.

 

Rey discovers it by accident when she’s pulling cables on the third floor. Two troopers pass on patrol, usual enough, until one leans over and calmly jabs two fingers in the back of the others neck with a metallic whisper of “Strike.”

 

The second trooper groans and continues on his way, leaving Rey blinking in their wake.

 

She asks Jay about it over dinner. It’s called  _ Silent Strike _ and she doubts the upper management know they play it. It seems fairly simple, the first day of the week a squad of four is given the title of ‘Striker’ in secret, their mission to ‘kill’ as many of their fellow troopers as they can, as sneakily as they can. The trooper with the most kills wins the trooper with the least kills evening meal on Primeday. If they’re found out they’re kicked out of the game, unable to get any more points.

 

It’s silly really, but Rey finds herself keeping an eye out for players when she’s working in the lower half of the ship.

 

Maybe it’s because Lord Ren has her playing a similar game, an equally stupid one.

 

“Rey, pass me that hydrospanner.” Zalya calls from under the data-panel they’re doubling up on. 

 

“You don’t want me to pass you that hydrospanner.” She sighs, soldering the loose fuse in the upper system.

 

“What?” Zalya’s head pops into view, frowning up at her.

Rey resists the urge to groan. She remembers everything Lord Ren has taught her on this, he has impressed upon her the importance of belief.  _ Know what you say to be fact _ , he said tipping her chin with his hand and staring at her so hard she was convinced he could see the wall through the back of her head.  _ Leave no doubt that they will do as you say and then make them. _

 

She swipes agitatedly at her face at the memory, smearing oil across her skin with a guilty little shiver.

 

“You  _ don’t _ want me to pass you that hydrospanner.” She repeats, focusing her gaze on the other woman’s brilliant green eyes. Her power rises almost reluctantly, feeling the hazy weight of Zalya’s mind like a cloud in the air, bending to her will.

 

“Yeah, you’re right.” She mutters, reaching out and snagging it herself. “I don’t want you to pass me that hydrospanner.”

 

Sighing again Rey returns to her task. It’s getting easier now, the indignant voice in the back of her mind is quieter. She’s not hurting anyone. Just practicing her powers. That’s all.

 

“Are you alright, Rey?” Zalya appears again, dragging herself out from the back of the panel completely and dusting off her hands on her overalls.

 

“Huh?” The question takes her off guard, she raises her shields instinctively before flushing at her own jumpiness.

 

“It’s just you haven’t been around much lately.” 

 

Oh no. Zalya wants  _ to chat _ . 

 

The twins have always been good to her, they’re a little more talkative than she’s used to but they’re free with their friendship. They’ve already leant her all five of the holonovels in their possession, including the one that’s technically banned by the First Order, horrified that she didn’t have easy access to such luxuries in her life before. The only things she read or watched were pulled from the personal quarters of long-dead strangers. Not exactly a conversation starter.

 

But Zalya is right. Rey doesn’t see much of them these days, apart from the odd meal-time or pairs work. Their normal shifts staggered so they’re rarely in the quarters at the same time. Something good for her, since it means they don’t notice her absence.

 

At least she thought they didn’t.

 

“What? No! I’m fine. I’ve just been… here and there. You know.” She covers, reaching again for her powers. She stills herself, it’s overkill to force Zalya’s mind before she’s even said anything.

 

“You know-” Zalya drops her voice, looking around the empty corridor. “We’re not allowed to get too friendly with the staff, right? I mean I know, I get it, I flirt with technician Seven-Four too but it can’t go any further than that.”

 

Rey’s eyes widen, an unexpected heat rising in her cheeks at the insinuation. Zalya thinks she’s sleeping with a crew member, that  _ that’s _ why she’s never around. She can’t decide if it’s better or worse than the truth. She does spend her evenings locked up in Lord Ren’s room alone with him.

 

It would be easy to get the wrong idea.

 

She imagines how Zalya would see it if she told her, like a scene from one of her holonovels. Sparring sessions turning sultry, Rey’s dark master claiming her nightly in the black silk sheets.

 

Her face is burning now. The images suddenly too real, too unsettling. She forces them down, reminding herself of the truth. That she’s training, working hard to forge herself into something stronger.

 

It's not that he isn't attractive. She's come to realise over the passing weeks just how pleasing his face could be. And yes, some small inappropriate part of her sometimes itches to drag her fingers through his inky hair just to see if it's as soft as it looks. But that's as far as it goes.

 

He is still a creature of darkness.

 

Even emptier and angrier than she is. All his edges are sharp, broken glass points and she has no wish to martyr herself upon them on an idle curiosity.

 

And anyway, Lord Ren’s interest in her is far from sordid. No, he prizes her for her powers.

 

“It’s nothing like that!” She says, voice unacceptably high pitched as she waves her hands at the other woman. “I just… need space sometimes. I’m not used to always being around people.”

 

“Oh.” Zalya looks almost disappointed, Rey can feel the shift in her mind. She has accepted her story. Reaching out, Zalya pats her arm, “I get it. You come from Jakku right? It’s a - uhm - quiet place?”

 

“Very quiet.” She manages a half smile, relief flooding through her that the story has taken. That she won’t need to push any further today.

 

The conversation has unsettled her more than it should have.

 

-

 

The lesson is different tonight.

 

She’d almost trips over herself when she enters the hush of his quarters to find him standing there, silhouetted by the great glass window, holding some sort of fruit in his ungloved hand.

 

It is a jarring image to say the least. She has almost convinced herself his hands are made from black leather, far more used to seeing him wield weapons than fruit. It’s easy to forget he is human. That he has to eat too. 

 

Noticing her hesitation he holds the plump red fruit out to her, “Kavasa?”

 

Is this a trick? A test? She gnaws on her bottom lip as she takes a hesitant step into the room, unable to pull her gaze from the offering. She hasn’t had real fruit - whole, sweet, real fruit, in… forever.  

 

“Sure.” She nods at last, walking towards him. Unable to resist the temptation of it.

 

He holds up a hand and she feels his power tighten around her legs, freezing her in place before she can take more than three steps. 

 

“No. Not like that.”

 

It is a test then. She narrows her eyes as he keeps her there, replacing the kavasa in the bowl on the table. He grasps a chair, dragging it to where she stands and leaving it behind her. It’s the chair he never normally moves. 

 

She feels a strange twinge somewhere behind her ribs as he loosens his grip enough that she can sit. Wondering if anyone has ever sat here before her. 

 

“I thought that was too easy.” She mutters, the cold metal helping to push her thoughts down. “There’s always a catch.”

 

“Of course there is.” He steps behind her, too close as always, and gestures with pale fingers to the distant table. “Now focus. Take the fruit.”

 

Rey sucks in a deep breath, this is a new challenge. She only wishes he wasn’t standing so close behind her. She can feel his hands where they rest of the back of the chair, warm against her shoulders through the thin cotton of her jumpsuit. His touch sears the half-healed scars he has left there from their sparring match.

 

She can’t stop thinking about what it means that he’s not wearing his gloves today. He always wears them.  _ Always. _

 

“Clear your thoughts.” He tells her, voice low in her ear. “And  _ take  _ it.”

 

For a moment all she can think about is what Zalya has said. Of her sordid insinuations and racy holonovels. The large black sheeted bed staring at her from the corner. Still ever so slightly rumpled.

 

She bites down hard on the inside of her cheek.

 

It would be much easier to clear her thoughts if he’d just step away from her. If he could let her breathe without inhaling him, the clean sharp scent of his clothing and the ever present ozone of his blade. She sucks in a breath, forcing herself to focus on her power. On the task he has set.

 

It should be easy. She needs only to decide what she wants and take it.

 

The kavasa moves, rising shakily from the steel bowl into the air.

 

“Good.” There’s a half-note of surprise in his still voice, pride too.

 

The elation is immediate, an electric burst that has her concentration breaking. Before she can stop it the red fruit shoots across the room, right past her outstretched hand to crash into the wall behind them.

 

He sighs, disappointed, and her heart falters.

 

She flinches at the feeling, stamping it down and burying it under irritation. She’s trying. He shouldn’t sound so displeased after only one attempt. It’s ridiculous.

  
And he should really,  _ really  _ move away already.

 

The next two attempts are as disastrous as the first. Humiliated indignation prickling at her skin and making her jumpier than ever. When the fourth kavasa only makes it halfway across the room before falling she hears him give that sharp little exhale of disapproval

 

Her eye twitches.

 

“Fine.” She snaps, sounding petulant even to herself. “Show me.”

 

One hand still hooked over the back of her chair he raises the other, the very picture of arrogant calm. The red fruit glides effortlessly through the air, slow and steady as he shows off his endless control.

 

_ Bastard. _

 

She turns her head to glare at him, inadvertently brushing against his hand. His bare fingers spark across the skin of her neck, momentarily stopping her heart. She flinches, refusing to feel it. Too focused on her irritation.

 

His concentration wavers, the fruit stilling in the air. Seeing her chance for revenge she seizes it, grabbing at the kavasa with her mind. She kicks her doubts aside and pulls it to her. Grinning in vicious triumph as she finally bites into it’s waxy skin, the rich, ripe flavours exploding on her tongue.

 

Almost as sweet as the stunned look on his face.

 

-

 

Every time Ren thinks she’s pushed passed the final hurdle of her uncertainty, something happens to set them back again.

 

She is unsettled today, unfocused and edgy as he sets the challenge before her.

 

He restrains a sigh as she fails to call the fruit to her for the fourth time. This should be so easy for her, she is easily powerful enough to lift the entire table should she choose. The ship even. And yet she’s holding back again.

 

Whatever triviality has hold on her thoughts, her concentration, she must overcome it soon.

There is no time for hesitation, not with the weight of his Master looming across them like a black shadow.

 

He must make her strong before she becomes a weakness.

 

“Fine.” She snaps at last, an unusual flicker of embarrassment colouring her voice. “Show me.”

 

He shakes his head and reaches for the fruit. It’s as easy as exhaling. All he has to do is reach for what he wants and take it, there is no mystery to it.

 

He feels her ire rise as he pulls the kavasa slowly across the room, demonstrating the control she could have if she let herself.

 

She turns in her seat, ostensibly to scowl at him. Drawing the soft skin of her neck against his naked fingers. 

 

He draws back as if she’s burnt him. Skin scorched at the contact. The kavasa falters in the air and before he can think she has seized control of it. The fruit lands easily in her hand and she grins smugly at him, sinking sharp white teeth into it’s flesh.

 

Has it been intentional then? A calculated brush of intimacy designed to throw his concentration and humiliate him? He wouldn’t put it past her. She is clever enough by far. He can hear his heart pounding in his ears as anger flickers around the edges his shock.

 

The thoughts muddling as he watches the red juice slick over her mouth, her eyes closing automatically as she lets out a breathy little moan of pleasure at the taste.

 

He starts back sharply, inhaling hard as he draws away in search of his gloves. He had forgotten to replace them after his evening meal, an oversight he is not likely to make again.

 

“Keep practicing.” He barks as she turns to look at him, confusion rising behind her eyes as he puts as much space between them as he can. 

 

Anger and confusion and something he fears putting words to fighting for control of him. 

 

_ This _ has never been part of the plan.

  
  



	11. Halfway Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, contrary to popular opinion, it's proven that laughter does not cure everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Oh my days I can't believe you beautiful people are still reading and commenting! I can't tell you how much you make my day - each day every day! :D
> 
> Rellie - you are a word goddess, why you deign to beta (and better) this nonsense is beyond me! :P ))

 

“You’re cheerful today.” Jay elbows her as he rifles through the toolbox for the tape he needs. The shift has been long, three of them working together to install a shiny new holoprojector in a little-used corridor of the officers deck.

 

“So what if I am?” She grins at him, catching the magwrench he throws her way so she can secure the back unit to the wall.

 

She can’t help it. Unable to keep the stupid little smile from her face as she tightens the bolts, anticipation already tightening her stomach as the hours tick down to her lesson.

 

She’s finally getting her hands on a lightsaber tonight.

 

Lord Ren is finally letting her take that step, that next delicious leap into the unknown. He’s been a little strange recently, almost distant since the kavasa incident. At first she thought it was disappointment, regret even for taking her on as a pupil. The thought becoming a sharp burn in her lungs until, determined to impress him, she lifted the whole table at the next lesson. Then the cupboard, the bed. Everything.

 

She’d practiced all night and half of her shift to get it right, to prove she was worthy.

 

The pride in his face was better than anything he could have said.

 

She wonders when she started worrying about his approval. She’s never in her life troubled herself with the opinions of others, but for some reason it has begun to matter to her what he thinks of her. That he hasn’t given up hope on her yet.

 

And now, strength proven, he’s finally letting her wield a saber. Even talking, vaguely, about preparing her to make her own. Thinking about it makes her pulse race, suddenly lightheaded with excitement. Tonight cannot come quickly enough.

 

“I know why.” Lim grumbles from the fuse-box at her feet, startling her. “It’s because we are officially over halfway through the contract. Trust me, I’m feeling it too.”

 

“Oh, yes.” She nods dazedly, willing to accept that excuse over giving one of her own. “You got me.”

 

The truth is she hasn’t thought about the contract in weeks. The realization she only has two months left on board has her stomach flip flopping. She has been so consumed in her lessons, in the hushed world of power and promises Lord Ren has pulled her into, that she’s forgotten all about the reason she’s on the Finalizer in the first place. Forgotten that this was always supposed to be a temporary gig. That she will one day leave. Bid goodbye to this strange, terrifying, wonderful dream she’s found herself in.

A dark shiver runs through her as she remembers the wave of anger that waited for her when she left before on the unexpected mission to Rattatak. Perhaps she is naive to think he will let her go when the contract is done. Perhaps she is naive to think that she’ll want him to.

 

She buries the thought, It’s a worry for another time.

 

“The second this job is up I’m taking a vacation.” Jay laughs, craggy face breaking into a wide grin as he downs tools to spread his arms wide. “‘Gonna spend a whole week in a bar on a beach somewhere on Corellia. No comms, no cares, _no_ _clothing_.”

 

He winks lasciviously at them and she finds herself snorting with laughter at the disturbing mental image it presents. She supposes he’s attractive enough for an older man, he’s about her height, broad and thickly muscled from all the heavy lifting. Close cropped blonde hair and broken teeth. But he’s hardly her idea of a pin-up boy. She’s never really considered her tastes before, Jakku not being exactly renowned for it’s busy social scene. But she imagines if she had to choose she’d prefer someone taller, darker. Less sweaty.

 

“I did not need to know that.” She ribs, wrinkling her nose at him.

 

“Sure ya did!” He grins, flexing his biceps in the tight jumpsuit. “Everyone deserves to know it! This is a gift I’m gonna share with the whole universe.”

 

“I’m going back to Bakura,” Lim mutters, sitting back on his haunches as the three of them silently agree to take a five minute break. They’re nearly finished anyway. “See my family again.”

 

 _Family._ Another topic she’s forgotten all about since she started training. They’ve overshadowed her whole life, one long waiting game for saviours who would never arrive. The first few weeks on the Finalizer she still tortured herself over them. Dark little moments in the depths of the night where she had to fight to stop herself heading for the hangar and getting back to Jakku by any means necessary. Just in case. That had been her mantra for decades.

 

_Just in case._

 

She had never gone too far from the outpost. _Just in case._ Lived her life in solitude, as little more than a servant. _Just in case._ Starved. Stayed. _Just in case._

 

Just in case they came back for her.

 

But then she’d left Jakku, met _him_ and everything had changed.

 

When she thinks of her family now it’s not with wistful longing or foolish hope, it’s with anger. A dark stabbing anger that rises in her throat like a growl. They abandoned her. They left her to die. She will never waste another wish on them again.

 

“How about you, Rey?” Lim is looking up at her and she knows she can’t say what’s in her head. That it’s not the question he’s asking anyway. Pushing the darkness down she slaps her smile back in place.

 

“I think I prefer Jay’s idea.” She shrugs, making them both laugh and feeling a warm little flutter of feeling towards the people she now calls friends. “Although I’d prefer it if Jay wasn’t there, of course.”

 

“C’mon Rey don’t be like that!” Jay laughs, making the muscles in his shoulders dance for them, “Think of all the strapping good fun we could have on the Golden Beaches! I’ll even rub solar lotion into your back so you don’t burn!”

 

“You’re too kind.” She snarks, rolling her eyes at him. “You’re going to get written up on harassment charges one of these days, and I won’t do a thing to stop it.”

 

“Nah! I could talk my way out of anything, love! The ladies can’t resist me.” He says in his deep, coarse voice, waggling his eyebrows at them as he bumps Lim on the arm with his fist. “The men neither!”

 

She can’t help but laugh, stupid snorting giggles as he parades back and forth like a peacock across the hallway. Lim blushing awkwardly as he tries to avoid the man-hug coming his way.

 

“I’ll report you myself!” He squeaks, ducking behind Rey as Jay dives at him.

 

Rey can only laugh as they chase around her. She’s missed this easy camaraderie the Techs have, a united force of against the First Order's unendingly serious rules and regulations. It’s odd though, even though she’s laughing she still feels separate from it somehow. Like she has a foot in two worlds but doesn’t quite fully belong to either.

 

Before the thought can catch something dark brushes against the edge of her mind, a familiar weight that makes her realize with a start that they won’t be undisturbed here for long. She barely has time to suck in a breath between laughs before a familiar black figure strides around the corner. Lord Ren is trailed by General Hux himself, pale face and livid as he follows in his wake.

 

“Ren, You can’t keep-” The General’s mouth snaps shut at the sight of them, a stark contrast to theirs. Lim’s mouth is so wide she has to fight the urge to shut it for him.

 

All three of them duck their heads automatically under his blue eyed stare, standing to attention.

 

Her face, already pink from laughter, heats further at the sudden weight of her teacher’s attention. For a second she can feel him, a sharp, stunned wave of anger so deep it threatens to swallow her whole. Then it’s gone. Her head is empty, like he’s vanished off the ship, even though she can still see him standing right infront of her.

 

“What is the meaning of this?” The General breaks the silence first, drawing himself up to his full height and spitting superiority at them as they flinch before him. She can feel an uncomfortable beat of guilt rising in her chest at being caught slacking off, chased by a familiar burn of anger at being spoken to like this.

 

There’s fear too.

 

Fear at the sudden disconnection she can feel between her and her mentor.

 

It’s like a blast door has slammed shut between them. He isn’t even trying to reach her, no dark weight of his displeasure, or even just a brush of acknowledgement. Nothing but static.

 

She glances at him from beneath her lashes as the General barks out something about work ethics and ship etiquette. And respect. He uses that word a lot in his speeches. Lord Ren is silent beside him. A dark shadow at his shoulder, unreadable behind the mask, seemingly frozen in place. Every muscle locked in place in a stillness she has never seen in him before.

 

Like a statue.

 

Her brow furrows as she reaches tentatively for his mind, brushing against shields so dense her mind aches just touching them. She can feel her heart beating uncomfortably in her throat at the sudden loss of contact.

 

Fighting back the feeling she reaches again, forcing herself to push forward into the cold emptiness in search of him, no matter how much the ice burns her. She bites down hard on her tongue, drawing blood, the pain clearing some of the awful emptiness as she pushes in.

 

She’s not sure how much she can take, sweat breaking out on her brow as she scrabbles in search of him. Not sure why it suddenly seems so urgent to make contact. To prove he’s still in there.

 

The tension snaps like a band and suddenly he’s there again. Still tightly shielded but present. the flicker of annoyance that rushes over her shields makes her almost sigh in relief. Confusion bubbling in her veins at this sudden strange mood swing.

 

“I will take your numbers and see you are dealt with immedi-” General Hux is cut off mid-sentence when a black hand clamps around his shoulders.

 

“Leave this.” His voice is painfully familiar, even through the metallic filter. His masked head turns, almost imperceptibly and she can feel his gaze on her again at last. “It will not do to keep the Captain waiting.”

 

The General glares at him, sneering at his hand as Ren pulls away. Rey feels a sudden sharp stab of anger for this man. Who is he to disrespect her mentor like this? The darkness rises around her and she can no longer tell if it’s her own or her teachers, building until she hardly breathe through it.

 

“Very well.” Hux says at last, vitriolic to the last word. “Get back to work.”

 

They are gone in an instant. The anger fading with them as a whole new mess of Tech legends spring up in their wake.

 

Her heart pounds for hours afterwards, worrying at the strange encounter long after the others have moved on from it.

 

-

 

He goes straight for his meditation room. The one place he is guaranteed to be alone.

He doesn’t even allow _her_ entry here.

 

The mask in the brazier is as silent as it's always been.

 

A still, twisted reminder of his purpose, his legacy. And the closest thing he has had to a confidant in more than a decade.

 

He has not sat before it in days, the realization worries him. His mind has become… unruly. The ordered columns of his world beginning to crumble at the edges. His priorities have shifted so slowly that it’s not until Hux cornered him in the upper corridor and demanded an update report that he realized he had been neglecting his duties.

 

Then they had stumbled into her.

 

The sound of her laughter, free and easy and so bright it stings him has chased him through the ship ever since. Ringing in his ears until he can barely think.

 

He sees her again and again, breathless and giggling as she pushes away some faceless brute of a Technician. He sneers at the image. The low creature that dared stand so close to her.

 

She has never smiled like that for him.

 

Something grips his heart, twisting it viciously in his chest. He would have killed that man had Hux not been there. Ripped him away from his apprentice and flung him against the panelling. A rage unlike any he had felt before sweeping through him.

 

He’d slammed down the doors, shut off his mind entirely whilst he fought back the vicious urge to _destroy_. Then she’d come for him, pink-face paling as she reached through the sharp ice of his shields and he’d remembered how to think again.

 

A change has taken place within himself, something unsettling. Almost frightening. He cannot let it control him though, channeling his uncertainty into the familiar burn of rage instead. The humiliation cutting away inside of him, banking the old flames of his anger.

 

He has become fixated on _her._

 

Now when he sits before the remnants of his grandfather, pleading for guidance, he finds himself thinking less and less about Skywalker’s dead body, and more and more about Rey’s. Alive. Beside him always in her rightful place.

 

He tries to convince himself it's because of her power. The potential she has to become a true apprentice to him, a worthy right hand.

 

But it's more than that and he can no longer deny it.

 

It’s _everything._ The stubborn set of her jaw when she fails a task, the heady wash of her elation when she succeeds. The way she turns to him, so eager to share her joy. The pulse of her anticipation against his shields, the dark snap of her eyes when something displeases her.

 

The scent of her hair. Soap and machine oil, and the memory of sand she can never scrub clean.

 

The warmth of her skin under his hands,. The touch of her neck against his bare fingers, her shoulder beneath his palm.

 

It has awoken base, animal needs he has never allowed in himself before. Distracting him from his true purpose. And yet he cannot pull away from her. Cannot tear himself from her orbit now that he finally has her in his hands.

 

He hates himself for it.

 

Hates himself for the way he responds to her. The way his chest tightens when she looks at him with those bright hazel eyes. The pull she has on the tiny spark of lightness he hasn’t yet fully crushed beneath the weight of his power. The way he’s woken up every night for weeks with her name on his lips, so hard he can barely breathe.

 

The constant knowledge that she is so close by and he cannot have her. Not like that.

 

Never like that.

 

The jealously that eats at him when he sees her with anyone else.

 

It’s destroying him. Twisting him up inside with every half-smile and shuttered glare. He would burn down the world to end the nightmare he has constructed for himself out of the lines of her face. To neutralize the unbearable weakness she’s causing in him, it’s growing like a tumour until he no longer knows what it will take to excise her. He can hear his Master’s advice, a slicing whisper in his mind, he would tell him to destroy her. To cut away the weakness once and for all until only the darkness remained. It is something he cannot do. Will not do.

 

He would flay the flesh from his bones if he thought the feelings would go with it, but not hers. Carve himself apart it would render his mind his own once more. Well, as much as his own as it’s ever been. It seems she’s pushing out his Master’s hold with every clever word, separating him from the dark glory of true power.

 

And yet...

 

He can no longer imagine a world without her. Every hour he spends apart from her has become a vicious torture, his rage reaching new heights as he seeks her mind out again and again. Reassuring himself that she is within his grasp. That she is alive and there and unharmed.

 

They cannot go on in this purgatory forever. He knows the truth, that her contract with the ship will not last forever. That a choice will have to be made. One he no longer thinks she has any power over.

 

If she does not master her training, accept her place in his world fully…

 

His heart seizes. The terror of this prospect becoming a sharp, steady beat in his veins.

 

He fights it down, there will time enough for this later. Now he must once more cage his demons, clear his shameful weakness from his mind and focus himself entirely on making her better. Making her strong enough to survive the darkness that looms in their future.

 

Whatever happens next he knows one thing for certain.

 

He will not give her up.

 

Even if it destroys him.


	12. A Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey learns something new about him every day.  
> It's what she learns about herself that worries her though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Wooooah there people! How can I even tell you how grateful I am that you're still reading and commenting and - gah - you make me inarticulate with joy! I hope you know how much I appreciate each and every comment and kudo, It really keeps me writing! <3
> 
> Rellie-Rell, you know what you do. It's witchcraft.))

 

Rey’s expecting him to be angry.

 

She shivers as she remembers the split-second of pitch black rage that had threatened to overwhelm her in the hallway not three hours earlier. The close-guarded pulse of his anger.

 

Her breath catches as she keys in the code to his quarters, the air is still. No dark cloud overshadowing her arrival, no simmering rage waiting beyond the door as it wooshes open for her. His emotions are guarded but steady.

 

If anything he seems even more focused than usual as he meets her gaze. There’s something in his expression she hasn’t seen before. Almost predatory. Her pulse quickens.

 

“Good evening,” She says, voice wavering slightly as she crosses the room. Gritting her teeth she forces her head up, wondering if the strange undercurrent of tension that’s sparking off her nerves has always been there or if it’s a new addition. Either way she cannot afford to let it affect her now.

 

“Good evening.” He’s waiting by the table again, just as tall and imposing as ever, a strange silver case resting beside him.

 

Her heart jumps violently, worries forgotten as she picks up pace. Looking rapidly between his face and the box. At what she thinks waits there.

 

His eyebrow rises slightly, the barest hint of a smile flickering over his mouth. She can’t even try and disguise her anticipation as she waits before him, suddenly breathlessly impatient.

 

“Is that - is it…?” She trails off, heart hitching in her chest as he nods.

 

“These are remnants of the downfall of the Jedi.” He says, unlatching the lid of the metal case. “Powerful reminders of their weakness.”

 

Excitement tightens her nerves as he opens it, beckoning her forward. Revealing the lightsabers to the light.

 

“When will I get my own?” She asks, stepping into his space unthinkingly until she can almost feel the warmth of him at her side, his gaze heavy on her as she drinks in the case’s contents.

 

There are four hilts laid out in the grey foam, each as different as the next. Silver and gold and grey and black. Some are damaged, scarred, others pristine. She can feel their power in the hollows of her chest, hands already itching to reach for them. In the very centre there is an empty space where a fifth saber must once have sat. For a moment she thinks it might be his but the shape’s all wrong. No crossguard cut-out.

 

“When you are ready.” He nods, head tilting consideringly as she reaches for them. She pauses, drawing back for his approval before letting her fingertips brush the cool metal within. “For now you will train with one of these.”

 

“What happened to that one?” She can’t help but ask, her voice oddly hushed in the still air of the quarters.

 

She trails her fingers over the empty space, curiosity beating at her as she turns her gaze upwards. She’s forgotten how close he is, close enough she can read the subtle change that passes over his features. Mouth drawing in by millimetres, eyes darkening a half shade as he glances at it and then quickly away.

 

It’s times like this she thinks she can understand why he wears the mask. Even shuttered his eyes hold more weight than anyone else she has ever met in her life. The entire breadth of human emotion lurking in their depths. Sometimes she worries about what she’ll see if she looks too hard.

 

“It was stolen many years ago.”

 

The catch in his voice brings her up short. She can feel the change in his emotions, a glimmer of age-old rage rising just below his shields. There is something else there too, something painful. Regret almost.

 

“It was important to you?” She doesn’t know why but now that she’s started this conversation she can’t seem to stop. This new change in him overshadowing her excitement of the case’s contents. Drawing back her hand she presses it against her side, finger clenching tightly at this sudden unexpected display of humanity.

 

He nods, so slightly she almost doesn’t see it. “It belonged to my grandfather.”

 

She can’t keep her eyes from widening. He has never spoken of his family before. He’s never spoken about anything outside of their training, the dark little world they have created together in these quiet rooms.

 

This new, strange information has settled heavily in her chest, weighing down a heart that seems determined to beat itself free from her ribs. She finds herself almost absurdly taken aback that he has a family. That he was not, as she half-suspected, forged fully-formed from the darkness.

 

He had grandparents, parents. He was someone’s son. She tries to picture them but her imagination fails her, too wrapped up in thoughts of a wide-eyed child with features he had yet to grow into. Lost and alone.

 

She fights the image down as another thought occurs. The lightsabers in the case belong to fallen Jedi, he’s said it himself. Which would mean...

 

“He was a Jedi?” She almost can’t believe she’s dared ask it outloud. Remembering the stories she’s heard below deck, the conflicting rumours. That he’s blood of the Jedi. That he’s royalty. That he’s so many things. Her words echo strangely in the still room and for a moment she thinks he won’t answer as darkness clouds his features. That he will slam the case shut and dismiss her for good.

 

Her blood races at the sudden snap of tension as he looks at her from far too close. The weight of the universe bearing down on her as she feels herself tilting on the edges of his eyes.

 

Then it’s gone and he shakes his head instead. Suddenly further away from her than ever even though he hasn’t moved an inch.

 

“He was the most powerful Sith Lord ever known.” He says, words clipped and careful. Like he’s tried to strip any feeling from them, she can still see something glowing behind them though. Something fervent and burning. “His destiny was to bring order to the universe. It is my duty to uphold that legacy.”

 

Her mind races. A powerful Sith Lord? She sifts through her memories for the stories she’s heard, the tales of the great war that ripped the galaxy apart before she was born. The one that left the badlands littered with star-ships. She rifles quickly through the things she’s learnt from propaganda found in crashed TIE fighters and the stories of old men at the outpost.

 

A name rises. A vision of a black mask that seems almost familiar now.

 

“Darth Vader.” She breathes the realization aloud. Mind presenting her with a half dozen conflicting stories she’s heard about the old Empire’s chief enforcer. A towering figure of darkness.

 

Like grandfather, like grandson.

 

He looks down sharply, eyes catching on her face. Piercing her right through until she’s sure it will leave a hole when he turns away, like he can see everything she’s thinking.

 

“Yes.” He nods curtly.

 

She can feel the dark beat of his emotions at the edge of her mind, a twisting mess of feelings that makes her temples ache in sympathy.

 

“But- He didn’t- I didn’t think he had any…” Her inner filter abandons her, face heating under the intensity of his gaze. Her curiosity has grown legs of it’s own, marching past her common sense and straight off her tongue. “Your parents…?”

 

“No.” He says. Something harsh and unforgiving sparking in his eyes. A sharp spike of rage. She can taste the pain behind it though, a deep pang of bitterness, of fear, that she’s never sensed in him before. “I have no parents.”

 

He turns away from her, walking away towards the window.

 

She’s taken three steps after him before she realizes she’s moved at all, her hand reaching automatically to touch him. To bring him back. His turmoil has become a dull roar in her ears, quickening in her veins. She has to fight the urge to reach for him, to wrap her power around his mind like a balm until it’s still again. The compulsion coming from someplace so deep she doesn’t have a name for it.

She stops herself, snatching her hand away and returning to the table. She doubts he would encourage such an act, he has told her time and again that compassion is a weakness.

 

But she feels it all the same.

 

She knows all too well what it is to be alone in the world.

 

His character has taken on new shading, this sudden knowledge filling in the gaps of the figure she's drawn of him in her mind. His need for power now measured against a benchmark, Vader. The ferocity of his gaze now coloured differently by knowing that he too is intrinsically alone.

 

She wonders if that’s their difference now. That he is still pursuing the shadow of his bloodline, where as she has scrubbed hers clean. Her eyes trace the lines of his shoulders as he examines the cosmos, feeling the frantic surge of his emotions retreating. They fade, a dull pulse in the back of her mind once more, as he turns back to her.

 

He gestures to sabers that still sit on the table, the ones she has quite forgotten about. “Aren’t you going to choose one?”

 

Her eyes drop to the case. Staring at them blankly for a long moment as the memory of her excitement returns to her. Heart still racing as she struggles to process this strange new side of him.

 

She hesitates over her choice, teeth worrying at her lip as she is gripped in indecision.

 

Shaking off her thoughts so focuses on the task at hand. Feeling the welcome wash of anticipation now that she finally gets the chance to wield a lightsaber of her own, the exhilaration of her choice. She snatches one up. The second hilt in. Silver and black and oddly skeletal in comparison to the other three.

 

It’s strangely warm in her hand.

 

-

 

He had believed himself secure when she arrived, the turmoil of his emotions tamed at last. But then she’d opened her mouth and torn him apart again.

 

He finds himself telling her things, things he doesn’t tell anyone. His bloodline is not spoken of, the Supreme Leader has seen to that. From the day of the other boy’s birth, the dead child he had been, there had been nothing but names.

 

Skywalker. Organa. Solo.

 

A freakish construction of other people’s wishes. The blood of the Jedi, the Prince to a dead planet, the son of a smuggler. The boy never stood a chance of surviving it.

 

Ren had killed him and chosen his own path. Hunted through the tangled web of expectations to find the true glory of his heritage. The remembrance of it still cuts him though, it is a private kind of motive. A dark purpose that fuels his steps in silence.

 

What is it about her flashing hazel eyes that makes him want to gut himself before her so?

 

To spill every secret, drag every painful memory from the corners he’s locked them in and lay them in front of her?

 

The urge to tell her everything, show her the whole bloody mess of his past. His soul. Is almost overwhelming.

 

Maybe she would run then, realize the darkness of him completely. Sneer or cry.

 

_Maybe she would understand._

 

His heart is thundering in his chest, hurling itself against ribs until he fears they will break beneath the onslaught. He can’t keep the sound of her voice from his head as he walks away from her. She is so… concerned. No one has been concerned for him in years, about him yes. But not for him. The warm weight of her power flutters over the edges of his mind like the wings of something unbearably fragile.

 

A glass bird that he could crush between his finger and thumb if he chose.

 

He has to pull himself away. Fight back the creeping warmth that lingers every place her eyes have touched him. It tugs at something in him, awakening age old wounds. Age old nightmares. Sparking at the pitiful sliver of light he must now bury anew.

 

He crushes the feelings, slamming them down before the panic can rise in him. The bone-deep fear of what he has let himself become. He replaces it with the calm wash of darkness, the soothing sound of her breathing.

 

He looks back at last, watching her hesitate over her decision before boldly snatching up a weapon. Claiming it as her own.

 

Head once more his own he lets himself return to her side. The excitement has returned to her, although it’s steadier than it was before, flushing her cheeks. Her power burns brighter than ever as she clenches her hand around the unfamiliar weapon, fascination ripe in her eyes.

 

The desire seems almost welcome now, the raw surge of need that rises in him at her nearness. It’s far preferable to the flickering lightness she dragged up in him before, darker and richer and infinitely more bearable. He embraces it like an old friend.

 

“Whose lightsaber was this?” She asks, turning it experimentally.

 

He frowns, lifting her hand so he can better look at it. He can hear the slight catch of her breath as his fingers fit easily around hers, dwarfing her hand in comparison.

 

“An old Jedi.” He says at last, considering the blade almost as intently as the sudden hitch of her breathing. The wave of confusion that burns beneath her shields. “Inconsequential, really. Although the saber is fine enough.”

 

He recognizes the blade well, familiar with each relic in the case. It seems almost fitting that she has chosen this lightsaber. He remembers the story of it, how it was wielded decades before by the man his grandfather had once called master. Now it belonged to a student of his bloodline instead. Letting go of her hand at last he takes great pleasure in watching the colour rise in her face.

 

“Well?” He asks, gesturing to the centre of the room. “Aren’t you going to try it?”

 

She startles, sweeping quickly away from him to take up position. He can feel the uncertainty beating inside of her, a heady mix of emotions he looks forward to untangling.

 

He stalks after her, watching the excitement flow across her face as she ignites the saber. She looks up at him in wonder, the blue glow bathing her features in the dim light of his quarters.

 

It glances off wide eyes.

 

Lips she’s bitten red-raw.

 

He can’t pull his eyes from them, wondering if it would sting her if he ran his tongue over the damage. If she would whimper if he pulled the swollen flesh between his teeth and tasted the coppery tang of blood.

 

-

 

Rey can’t breathe, her lungs suddenly too small for her chest.

 

The atmosphere has turned on a knife’s edge once more.

 

The soft, angry hush of repressed memories and curiosity has changed to something different… tense and electric.

 

She has to fight the urge to scrub her hand against her jumpsuit. Her skin is _burning_ , heat spreading from the place he had held her hand captive in his palm. It shoots up her arm, licking along her nerve endings to settle low in her stomach. A warm flush of heat.

 

Her mind has filled itself with static, something like panic thundering in her chest at this strange new reaction to his touch. Burning her up from the inside.

 

Fighting to regain her focus she holds the saber warily out in front of her as he has shown her, fingers trembling ever so slightly as she presses against the ignition.

 

The blade rushes to life, bright blue and blinding in the half-light. Her breath leaves her body all at once at the feel of it, raw power and precision. Her heart beats two at a time, a dark surge of excitement sweeping her anxiety away under the lightsabers glow.

 

Feeling herself again she glances up at her mentor, her anticipation reflected in his dark eyes.

 

Then his gaze flickers to her lips and for one, half-mad second she has the absurd notion that he’s about to try and kiss her. Like the boys at the outpost used to, before they’d learnt what the hard edge of her staff felt like.

 

Her heart leaps wildly, face heating under the dark sweep of his gaze and for a split second she’s not sure how to react. Stunned into silence as a part of her leaps at it. _Wants_ him to. The thought is as mortifying as it is sudden. Then he’s looking away and she has to dig her nails into her palm to clear the strange, intrusive thought.

 

She files it away, deep, somewhere it can be buried until she can explain it away in the cold light of day.

 

Clearing her suddenly dry throat she takes a half step away, swinging the blade in a loose arc as if the burning plasma could cut right through the tension.

 


	13. Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some fights you don't know you're in until you've lost them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Thank you so much to everyone still here! I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint ;-)
> 
> Relliebi-Wan Kenobi. You know exactly how much of this chapter is your fault. :D))

 

The tension builds for days.

 

Rey can’t unsee it now.

 

It grows with each lesson, a fluttering, thrumming thing inside her chest she can’t shake no matter how hard she tries. A nameless fear that seizes her every time she meets his gaze.

 

Although it shouldn’t be a problem today.

 

Lord Ren is away on a mission. Something she has already thanked the stars a dozen times for. The fact is she can barely look at him anymore. Not without remembering that ridiculous, terrible, all consuming moment. Seeing again the intensity of his face bathed under the saber’s blue-lit glow, raw and hungry. Like he could devour her whole.

 

Like she’d let him.

 

Something very real has taken root in her. A confusing, burning need that twists at her insides, even as if follows on the cold heels of an even more terrifying realization.

 

She cares about him.

 

Somehow, over the months he has been training her, he has become important to her. To the point where she feels a hot burn in her throat now whenever she overhears the other technicians talking badly about him. Curious and defensive at the same time. She bites her tongue over and over to keep from saying anything stupid.

 

It’s not as if she has any illusions about him, she knows he can be just as dark and volatile as they say. But that is not all there is to him. He is more than just six feet of rage in a black cloak, more than the nightmare from the stories. He’s a mess of contradictions. Patient and impatient, controlled and raw. And the more she thinks about him the more the feeling grows.

 

And it’s making her angry.

 

Really, really angry. The stubbornness in her soul rises as she fights the thoughts at every turn. Endlessly agitated by her unwilling reaction to him. She has never needed, never wanted, another person like this before in her life and it's infuriating her.

 

She knows better than to project her own loneliness on the actions of others. Especially on to the actions of someone as unreadable as Kylo Ren. It would be like trying to fly an Imperial Star Destroyer after only ever learning on a Speeder. She hasn’t let herself question his motives, especially not when this may well be another test. Another trial of her emotions, her weaknesses.

 

It would be better to forget about it, to revert back to their earlier form. Back when the lines were more clearly drawn. Only she doesn’t know how. So she ignores it and channels her frustrations into her lessons instead.

 

She’s learning faster than ever as she runs from the sound of her own heartbeat, funnelling her confusion into each stroke of her blade. Each expansion of her powers. Forging links with the universe on a level she has no name for, like she could touch each star. Feel every atom.

 

Even in his absence she’s unwilling to give the distraction up, tracing the familiar path through the ship to his room each night he’s gone. Using his quarters to practice in, even as she tries to ignore how empty it feels without him there. How much she misses his ridiculous looming intensity, the dark twist of his mouth when she amused him. The stubborn huff of his irritation when she questioned him too much. The suffocating weight of his power.

 

It’s only been four days and she’s already anxious over his return. Staring at her reflection in the window and wondering which stars he’s seeing. What planet he’s found himself on this time.

 

If he’s hurt.

 

If he’s hurting others.

 

The staff talk in his absence, they theorize he’s off on another vengeance mission. That he’s torturing and pillaging as they speak. She tries to imagine it, his long reach striking out to kill. Mask glowing red in the light of his saber. Her heart squeezes, a sick pang of guilt twisting her stomach. How could she care so much about someone capable of such evil?

 

How much of a monster has she become?

 

He’s never hurt _her_ before though. Except of when they spar of course, when she gives as good as she gets. But never beyond that. He’s never once raised his powers against her in anger.

 

She wonders if he could. If one day, if she pushes him too far, he’ll kill her.

 

She forces the thoughts down, turning away from the accusatory glare of her own reflection. Angrily unzipping the top of her jumpsuit she ties the sleeves tightly about her waist. She’s taken to training in her undershirt in his absence, old wrappings tied around her forearms to hide the evidence of her mis-timed swings. Skin singed from her own carelessness.

 

She really doesn’t want to keep explaining the lightsaber burns in her uniform to the laundry staff.

 

Heading into the training room she ignites her blade, taking a deep, calming breath before launching into her forms.

 

She will practice until she’s too tired to think of him.

 

-  


The venture has been another spectacular failure.

 

The leads his Knights presented him with were nothing more than rumours, hazy and insubstantial as the wind. The mountainside village was devoid of information, no map, no clues, nothing.

 

He’d stripped two dozen minds for information, only to find each as useless as the last.

 

Such a waste.

 

The anger has been building since he left, a dull, roaring rage that has sunk into his bones by the time he returns. The whole pointless affair made worse by the fealty he has had to pay to Leader Snoke. The detour to Star Killer base has exhausted him more than the three days he’s spent trekking through forests. His shields are still locked tight as he steps off the shuttle, a terse headache he has yet to release.

 

Snoke’s gaze was sharper than ever today, razor-sharp and probing. He’s not quite suspicious yet but it’s close, the displeasure at Ren’s failure palpable. The Supreme Leader is no fool, Ren knows he can feel the conflict in him. The sudden surge of emotions awoken by his apprentice. But his control is true and nothing has been discovered.

 

Not yet at least.

 

 _Rey._ She has been a phantom pain in his chest for days. A constant dull choking fear that has gripped him whenever he thought of her alone on the ship, which was often, her safety first in his mind. The sound of his heart in his ears became the thunder of her name. A dark whisper repeated louder and louder in his head until he could barely breathe through it. Until his every action felt haunted by her ghost, a spectre at his shoulder watching his every move. Feeling the weight of her judgement as he did what needed to be done.

 

He bites his teeth together, the muscle in his jaw clenching as he storms through the ship, returning to his room to regroup. To lick his wounds before he must face the insufferable Hux and tell him the map has still not been found.

 

And still the need to see her overshadows it all.

 

It’s late, Rey’s probably asleep. He knows it. But he cannot control the selfish, stabbing need to know she’s alright. He’s about to reach for her when he feels it, the bright glow of her powers is right there. Waiting for him. It steals his breath, silencing his worries as he silently tracks it. To his quarters.

 

Eyes widening ever so slightly he checks his shields, making sure no trace of his presence is tangible before approaching the door, unsure why he has the sudden need to see her like this. A voyeuristic need to take back control of the situation rising in him.

 

As if, by seeing her unnoticed, he might be able to steal back the hold she has on him.

 

One of the chairs at the table has been pulled out, her work bag resting upon it. Blue light spills from the half-open door to the training room, he can hear the sound of her blade slashing through the air. The sound of her breathing, ragged and restrained as she practices.

 

Something dark stirs in his veins as he carefully removes his mask, placing it silently in the brazier before stepping towards the doorway. A new sort of tenseness gripping him as he stalks towards her. Lurking in the shadows he catches sight of her at last, her back to him as she trains. It’s absurd how much better he feels. Like he’s breathing properly for the first time since he left.

 

A strange possessiveness rises in him at the sight of her so comfortable in a space that has always been his alone. She looks so right there. Like she belongs.

 

It’s the first time he’s ever seen her so unguarded before. The wariness she wears as a shield completely missing in the solitary training room. She is a thing of frightening beauty as she wields the saber, and yet somehow she seems more vulnerable than ever.

 

He thinks he could watch her like this forever.

 

Her hair is braided, a stark difference to the buns she usually restrains it in, whipping behind her as she drives through the movements he’s taught her. The golden skin of her arms bare to him in an off-white tunic he hasn’t seen before, her usual uniform tied about her waist. He can see the faint shine of scars where her sleeves just brush her shoulders, the matching lightsaber grazes she had earnt in their earlier duel. A med-droid could reknit her flesh in minutes, erase the scars from existence. But she hasn't let them.

 

She wears the marks proudly.

 

He swallows hard, the now-familiar burn of desire rekindling at the sight of her like this. So engrossed in her action she hasn’t felt his gaze at all. He can feel the steady pulse of her power as she forces herself through the complicated dance. Muscles coiling and contracting under the bright blue glow, lithe and dangerous.

 

He knows he should balk at viewing her like this, a sneaking, unworthy invasion of her privacy. But she has come here uninvited, crept into his inner sanctum without his knowledge. It's only fair he return the favour.

 

It isn’t enough though. Not for long. He needs to see her eyes, hear her voice.

 

He clears his throat, shields dropping as he steps into the room with his shoulders squared.

 

A split-second stiffening of her spine and she’s whirling on him like a hurricane. Teeth bared in a growl as she slashes instinctively outwards with the saber. Defensive and fearsome at the sudden intrusion.

 

He sees it all in slow motion. Feels the intoxicating wave of anger that she unleashes, chest heaving with exertion as her hair flies behind her. Her aim is sharp and true.

 

-

 

Someone is watching her.

 

The moment she feels it she reacts on instinct. Unleashing every scrap of pent up anger, fear and confusion she’s been harbouring for days as she wields her weapon on the intruder. Ready to strike them down.

 

Her mind catches up to her hands, almost too late to pull the blow as she sees the familiar figure in the doorway. Her inner-turmoil has been so all consuming that she did not feel him approach. The familiar buzz of his power is inescapable now. Of course it would be him. Who else would it be?

 

Dragging the saber away she kills the blade immediately, blood rushing to her face at her own skittish lack of self-control. She drops her head, sucking air into lungs suddenly too small for her chest as she attempts to collect herself.

 

“My apologies, Lord Ren.” The thunder of adrenaline wanes just enough to let stubborn wash of her pride return. Straightening her spine as she raises her gaze. “I thought you were away still and I... I didn’t want to let my training slip.”

 

He looks almost amused by it, the corners of his mouth turning up in a half smile. Underneath the anger and embarrassment at herself, she feels something stir. Her heart squeezes. She’s pleased to see him.

 

Shuddering at the sudden warmth in her chest she bites her tongue, the pain helping to clear it a little.

 

“You don’t need to apologize, apprentice.” He nods magnanimously. “It is good that you’re keeping up with your practise. Although perhaps we still need to work on your awareness.”

 

Nose wrinkling at the jab she follows him automatically as he returns to the main room. Rolling the tension from her shoulders as she watches him discard his cloak. He unsnaps his belt and she has to turn away as his surcoat joins the pile. Face heating.

 

He stops removing things after his gloves go and she is very, very glad.

 

“Was your mission a success?” She asks, a stupid question to fill the suddenly unbearable silence. Her voice is steady, thank the Maker, although she can’t keep the subtle undercurrent of anxiety from it. She’s almost entirely sure she doesn’t want to hear the answer.

 

“It was… satisfactory.” He replies, a dark wave of bitterness pulsing in the space between his words.

 

Less than satisfactory then. Something in the past few days has stoked his rage, deepening the scars of anger she can feel beneath the surface. Although, the longer she listens for it the further away it grows. Fading beneath her notice.

 

As if sensing her interest he turns to look at her, catching her eyes with his. Dark and searching. She keeps forgetting what it’s like to be under the full weight of his gaze. His curiosity. Every time like the first time.

 

Like he can see right through her.

 

“I should go,” She says, almost a question as she forgets how to breathe again. She’s already lingered here too long, she has an early shift in the morning. Excuses excuses. “It’s getting late.”

 

“Not yet,” He says quickly, almost... desperately. Her heart leaps at the strange catch in his voice, then he’s drawing himself up. The moment gone as he gestures imperiously to the centre of the room. “I’d like to see your forms first. See if you’ve made proper use of your time in my absence.”

 

She lets out a short sigh of relief, welcoming the thinly veiled barb.

 

If she’s focusing on her training, she can stop thinking about how quickly her control is slipping. She takes her place and reignites the blade. She lets the quiet sound of the plasma fill her head, fighting to center herself with it. To still her desperate heart beat as she steps into the first form.

 

She draws out each stroke and parry, as if she could cut his presence from her mind with them.  As if it might burn away the thoughts that still threaten to consume her. She’s so aware of him, almost painfully so. She can feel his eyes on her as she moves, lingering over the vulnerable skin of her arms, her neck.

 

Her grip slips just a fraction as she loops the blade around, a minute flaw that means she gets to add another graze to her forearm. A mistake she doubts she would have made if he wasn’t still staring at her quite so intently.

 

Anger rises, focused inward at her own lack of concentration. She pushes through it, channelling the rage into her second form between gritted teeth. Then he’s coming for her.

 

For a second her heart seizes, a defensive wave of darkness rising and stripping her of her reason. Misinterpreting his approach as a threat. Then his arms are around her, stilling her hands with his. Skin to skin.

 

A very different kind of fear takes hold of her.

 

“No, keep your hand here,” His voice is low against her ear, breath stirring the strands that have escaped her braid as he adjusts her grip on the hilt. Caging her in his arms. “And your shoulder forward, otherwise you’ll cut your own arm off.”

 

She flushes as she feels the weight of his gaze on the bandages she’s wrapped around her forearms. Fingers brushing up her arm to touch the cauterized wound that’s sliced into it before returning to her hand.

 

“Again.”

 

Her breath catches ever so slightly as his thumb grazes the back of her knuckles, blood racing as he guides her slowly through the first movement again.

 

She's terrified he can hear her heartbeat. Feel her pulse racing where their skin touches. He's so close she can barely tell where she begins anymore. It sends dizzy waves of heat licking along her skin, pooling low in her abdomen.

 

She’s never known a touch like this.

 

No one touched her on Jakku, not really, physical contact came only when there were too-few spots at the washing station and they’d all get cramped up together on the benches. Or if she was fighting someone of course.

 

She’s not fighting him now, not even slightly.

 

She’s fighting herself.

 

Fighting the urge to lean back into him, into the warmth he offers. He has made her a puppet in his arms, directing her every movement. The loss of control stings her bitterly but it’s buried too far for her to reach. She struggles against her own mind, trying desperately to drag up her anger, her irritation at herself, anything to break herself free from the effect he’s having on her.

 

He drops a hand to her hip, adjusting her movement as she steps into the second form and she knows she’s lost. Trying desperately to suppress the dizzying current that’s taken hold of her.

 

“Perfect.” He murmurs, so close that she can feel the gentle scrape of his lips against the shell of her ear. It has her breath shortening, ragged and uneven as the languid heat that has been building within her bones becomes almost painful in its intensity.

 

She nods, not trusting herself to speak without betraying herself.

 

-

 

His fingers scrape along the rough gauze that wraps her arms, a stark contrast to the ungodly softness of her skin. He sees the dedication in each carefully bound wound, badges of honour. Reminders of her growing power.

 

He hears the soft gasp of her breath as he adjusts her step and the beast inside him roars.

 

There is so much outside of this room he can’t control, so much darkness and disappointment. But this, _her,_ is in his power at least. She’s warm and real and here, and he is willing to drown in her.

 

She’s pliable beneath his hands, following every movement as he guides her with the lightest of touches. He will regret this foolishness later. A world of anger and humiliation is waiting in the wings for him. She will run from him, he knows it even as he clings to the heady pulse of her emotions. Confusion, desire, and the same dark stab of self-hatred he feels because of it.

 

A matching pair.

 

Maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t be a weakness.

 

Maybe it could be a strength.

 

But the moment cannot last forever. She finishes the form and lets the blade die in her hand. He knows this is the signal that he should release her. He should withdraw and pretend that nothing has happened. Scrub her from his skin, erase every trace of her until he can bury this feeling down somewhere so deep even he won’t be able to find it anymore. Until the next time at least.

 

But he doesn’t. If anything he clutches her harder. Fingers clenching into the delicate skin of her hip, the softness of her arm. So tight he knows there will be bruises there by morning. A surge of heat rises in him at the thought, that he has marked her. A clear sign to the world that she is his and his alone.

 

He can see the pulse jumping at the base of her throat, beating like the heart of a trapped rabbit. He can’t tear his eyes away as she tilts her head, slowly, looking up at him. Seeing the confusion in her eyes, but beyond that, behind the uncertainty is something else. Something almost feral.

 

Something frantic seizes him, almost like madness. There’s a dim metallic clatter as the saber falls from her hand.

 

He cannot stop himself. Practically snarling as he descends on her, tearing through the space between them as he seizes her lips with his.


	14. Conflict

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes when you kiss a sleeping princess a sleeping dragon awakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Holy wow! I can't even believe the response to the last chapter, you have rendered this humble fic peddler speechless! All I can say is THANK YOU SO MUCH aaaaand... I really, really hope you guys enjoy this chapter ;-)
> 
> Rellie. You are the unchained melody to this fic. You help me shape it like clay. You... probably get the reference by now :P))

  
  


His mouth is a brand on her, searing through every defense she’s ever built as he kisses her. A frantic,  _ desperate _ kiss. For a moment she’s frozen, a statue in his arms as he lays waste to her senses. Destroying her rationality entirely. Then she comes to herself just enough to twist in his grip, driving her hands into the hard planes of his shoulders. She can’t tell if it’s to pull him closer or push him away.

 

The darkness in her rises, the memory of every lonely hour, every humiliating struggle she has had to endure to survive pouring out her like a wave as she kisses him back. Letting herself burn.

 

His hands find the curve of her waist, splaying against her spine to drag her closer. Dropping to her hips and clenching hard. Fingertips marking her as clearly as the hot weight of his mouth on hers. She pushes back, nails digging into the tendons at his collarbone, sharp and scrabbling as she bites down on his full swell of his lip. Tasting blood as she struggles for control over the kiss, over him.

 

He groans, the sound vibrating through her body from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and redoubles his efforts. He drives her backwards, more animal than man, pressing her into the cold metal of the wall until she’s trapped there. Locked under him as he claims her mouth again, kissing her into submission. His power pressing as desperately against her as his body, an urgent weight that’s threatening to overwhelm her.

 

His need terrifies her. 

 

“ _ Rey- _ ” He growls against her mouth as she pulls back for air, desperate and possessive. Chilling her to her bones even as he sets her blood boiling. “You’re  _ mine. _ ”

 

His mind presses against hers, a frightening roll of power that sinks right down to her bones. She suddenly feels owned. Wanted yes, cared for even, but  _ owned  _ nonetheless _.  _ Claimed as his in no uncertain manner, a sharp dominating force so intense it borders on madness.

 

And she remembers that this is wrong, on so many hundreds of levels she can’t even think of. She’s not his. She’s  _ hers _ . And yet it still takes every fractured inch of her self-control to push against it, to drag herself from his heated touch and shove him back at last.

 

He stumbles away, wild eyed and panting. She’s breathing hard, practically gasping for air through the fire in her chest. She can still taste him. Her whole being hyper-sensitive and staggering from his kiss.

 

“ _ Rey _ -” His heavy gaze brands her where it lingers, dark and almost…  proud. Suddenly she can’t stand the sound of her name on his lips. So familiar, so  _ intimate.  _ Like he knows her.

 

No one knows her.

 

No one but her, and that’s debatable right now. She’s doesn’t recognize the girl who’s emerged from his arms.

 

“No.” She shakes her head, letting the dizzy storm of her emotions fuel her anger as her hand rises without permission to touch her bruised lips. Glaring at him with burning, reproachful eyes even as the brush of her fingers reawakens the stinging pleasure. Heart lurching at the touch.

 

He has crossed a line. Erased it entirely without warning and changed everything.  _ How dare he? _ How dare he do this to her.

 

How dare he just stand there, staring at her like at any minute he’ll cross the space between them and claim her again. Desire tightens within her at the thought, liquid and scorching. She can feel his power respond, the pulse of his mind tied to hers as his eyes narrow. He takes a step forward.

 

“Don’t.” She flings out a hand to stop him, voice tight in her throat. Unable to look away. “Please- don’t.” She hates how much it sounds like begging. Dragging her righteous fury back around her like armour she straightens under his gaze, unknotting the sleeves from her waist and hauling her jumpsuit up over her arms. Zipping it to her chin. “Why are you doing this?”

 

“I- What do you mean?” His gaze pierces her, dazed and searing all at once. His intensity is almost too much, all black eyes and swollen lips. She can see the faint touch of red in their center where she bit him, heat scalds her face at the memory. At the way he’d groaned beneath her. She stamps the thought down. 

 

The desire isn’t enough.  

 

All of the questions she has ignored, the questions she has fought back for so long rise with a vengeance. Like bile in the back of her throat. Unavoidable, inescapable questions she must face at last. She’s doubting everything. Why he started this, why she agreed to it. His every move and motive now up for debate.

 

Why she still cares so much.

 

“ _ Why are you doing this?  _ Teaching me, training me… kissing me?” She presses her hand against her mouth again, an unwelcome prickling beginning to build behind her eyes. “What do you get out of this? What - What do you  _ want _ from me?”

 

Her voice cracks ever so slightly, humiliation tearing into her like a sand storm. Blinding and endless, a thousand tiny grains biting away at her, stripping the flesh from her bones. 

 

He had said he would help her control her powers, when he’d first cornered her. That it was to stop her from hurting others. How had they ended up here? Her self-loathing burns as she realizes her own stupidity. She’s been so wrapped up in what he offered, the power, the exhilaration of learning, she’s never stopped to think about what it means to be his apprentice.

 

What it  _ really _ means.

 

Has this always been his intention?

 

She knows why she wants this, he has offered her power, belonging, all the things she has never had. But she is not like that. She is no-one. What could he possibly get from breaking the boundaries like this? From training her in the first place?

 

Does he expect her to be some passive servant he can own? A plaything can teach and kiss and cow until he gets bored of her?

 

Panic grips her in a vice, clawing out of her chest and into her throat.

 

“I don’t understand.” He says and she can feel his frustration rising. Feel the confusion swirling at the edges of his mind even as she fights against the connection. He’s everywhere. Inside her head, all over her skin. A dark, urgent pulse mixing with her panic, getting harder and harder to breathe through.  “Don’t-”

 

“Just tell me this-” She cuts him off, suddenly shaking so hard she has to bite her teeth together to stop them from chattering. She’s never felt like this before. So angry and confused and hurt. The worst thing is the desire that still rages within her when she looks at him. She can’t bear it. She sucks in a breath, leveling him with her gaze. Willing him to tell her the truth. “Were you ever going to let me leave?”

 

He hesitates, something frantic in his eyes. Fervant and burning. 

 

And she knows the truth. 

 

“Rey,” He begins, taking another step towards her, pale fingers stretching to her face. “I-”

 

“No.” She shakes her head, darting out of his reach. She can’t stand to hear his answer, not now. “I need to not be here right now. I- I need to think.”

 

“You can’t leave-” He falters as if he’s about to say something else, but then the composure that has deserted him returns. His hand drops, shoulders straightening into a hard line. Tall and imposing once more. “ -the ship. I won’t allow it.”

 

“I won’t.” She bites the words out, backing into the door and slamming her fist against the button to open it. “I just have to be away from  _ you _ .”

 

It’s a petty jab she knows, almost childish, but she feels better when he flinches at her words. He glowers at her as she steps away. She doesn’t turn her back on him until the door shut between them. 

 

Then she starts running.

 

Once she starts. She can’t stop. She slams up every shield she has as she tears through the ship. Locking herself inside a metal box in her mind where even he can’t reach her. Although she can still feel him try, a grasping urgent touch she shies away from. 

 

He has ruined everything. 

 

He was supposed to train her, make her stronger. Not tip them over the edge right into the abyss until she doesn’t know who she is. What she wants. 

 

She pauses at an intersection on the mid-deck, looking for somewhere, some place she can hide from his notice. Somewhere he won’t think to look whilst she sorts out the pounding in her head.

 

Her feet move without her permission, dragging her through the ship to the only place that might still feel right anymore. The locker room is almost empty, the hour too early for Vahna to be barking orders. 

 

Yalza’s the only one on duty, looking around with a start. She’s just clocked in. Perfect.

 

“Rey - are you okay?” Concern colours her bright green eyes at Rey’s sudden appearance. The worry presses against Rey’s shields, she shoves it away hard.

 

“What shift are you on?” Rey barks, point blank and shaking in place. Knowing every second she wastes here is one closer to him coming after her. She doubts he’ll be able to leave her to think for long. He’s almost as stubborn as she is.

 

“Hard-lines on C-deck-” Yalza frowns in confusion, reaching slender fingers for her arm. “Seriously, are you okay? You look awful.”

 

“Give me your shift.” She doesn’t stop to think, to feel, overriding her friend’s mind without hesitation. She takes the work bag from her suddenly slack fingers, gesturing back to the door. “Great, now go hang out in the quarters or something. Don’t tell anyone about this.”

 

“Sure. I won’t tell anyone about this.” Yalza marches off on jerky legs. Leaving Rey clutching her stolen bag. Hers is still in his room. She’ll have to go back for it sooner or later. Face him sooner or later.

 

Later for preference.

 

She should feel guilty about using Yalza like that but she doesn’t. She needs to be somewhere he won’t look for her, not until she’s ready to face him again. Hiding out in a wall panel on C-deck sounds just about perfect. She thinks for a moment of betraying him. Of heading for the hangar instead, stealing the first ship she sees and flying straight out of the solar system.

 

She discards the idea. The ships all have trackers, by the time she’s escaped the laser-cannons and disabled the security measures he would already be hot on her heels. And angry as hell that his  _ pet  _ had left without permission. 

 

Finding her assigned corridor she folds herself inside the wall, pulling the panel back in place behind her. Trapping herself in the dark, stifling heat. It will take him far longer to find her here.

 

She needs desperately to understand what just happened. How they can move on from this. How she can face him again without giving up everything. Turning her back on herself, her life. It would be so easy to lose herself in him, to submit to him completely and let him reshape her into something else. Someone else.

 

And she can never let that happen.

 

She’s Rey. She’s a scavenger without a planet. She’s a pilot without a ship.

 

But she is his apprentice too. She can still fear the sharp twist of loyalty in her stomach when she thinks of him. A fervent beat of feeling.

 

She wanted this didn’t she? She wants  _ him. _

 

But she wants herself too. Her mind is aching, trying to hold together the broken pieces of herself. The sides of her fight for control, a cacophony of voices splitting her skull even through the shields. Twisting her stomach with a harsh kick of fear, of want. She can’t even begin to understand this. What she is, where she stands.

 

So she does the only thing she can.

 

She turns on her solar light and gets to work. There is no need for Yalza to suffer because she has taken her job. The familiar motion of the rewiring the cables helps, letting her work the anxious energy from her aching limbs even as her mind finally quiets itself down.

 

The cramped space seems almost comforting now.

 

It reminds her of the coldest nights on Jakku, the ones where it seemed she would never be warm again. She’d cram herself in the crawl space behind her generator, inhaling the sharp scent of hydraulic oil, warm at last as the loud buzz sent her to sleep.

 

Everything was so much easier back then, safer.

 

_ And boring.  _ Her mind whispers traitorously.

 

The hours slip past without her notice as she throws herself into the mindless task, her eyelids turning leaden. She hasn’t fixed a cable in… she can’t remember. She can’t remember anything.

 

She’s exhausted.

 


	15. Compromise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes a compromise is just neither person getting what they really want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Wow guys! Thank you so much for your support on the last chapter, I was kind of worried before I posted it but the positive response has just -wow - floored me! I can't tell you how much I appreciate everyone who comments! It really does mean the world to me <3
> 
> Rellsicle. Babes. You saved this chapter from the vampires and you know it :P))

 

Ren has ruined everything.

 

He thinks he should be used to the feeling by now, he is nothing if not an amalgamation of spectacular failures after all. A failed son. A failed Sith. An unworthy apprentice, a worse mentor.

 

The self-hatred is an old friend.

 

But this is worse. It cuts deeper, more viciously than any of his previous humiliations.

 

The kiss had been everything.

 

Weeks of fever dreams and fantasies paling into insignificance in comparison to the reality. Even more bright and burning than he could have believed. She was an urgent, scalding being in his arms as she’d poured herself into him. For one perfect heartbeat he had forgotten everything else, the world fading until _she_ was the only real thing anymore. She was _his_. They were together.

 

And then the truth of it had crept back in and destroyed it all.

 

She’d pushed him back. Like he’d always known she would. Her sharp, accusing eyes still dark with want. It had taken a control he didn’t know he possessed to hold himself still when she'd stumbled away, to keep from snatching her back up in his arms. To drown her in his need until she'd forgotten how to speak. To think.

 

And then she’d opened her mouth and flayed him alive. The intense weight of her confusion, her anger rushing into his dazed mind like the tide as she stabbed him right through with a look.

 

_What do you get out of this? What- what do you want from me?_

 

He couldn't find the words to answer her with then and he doubts he could find them now. Words seem beneath this feeling that has infected him. They cannot describe his need.

 

He wants her. _All_ of her.

 

He paces the room, frustration measured in his stride. She is the only one in the universe who could possibly hope to understand him. He knows it now. The one person able to understand the power they share, the weight of it’s responsibility. The inevitable pain the pursuit of glory brings.

 

He has no term for her, for what he wants her to be. His apprentice. His partner. _His._

 

The depths of this feeling terrifies him.

 

If she doesn’t accept him now he doesn’t know what will become of them, become of _him._ Something dark seizes him when he thinks about the alternative, the thought of her leaving him. Of what he might do if she did. Even though she grows stronger by the day he doesn't doubt his skills. With enough time, enough power, he could make her submit.

 

Make her stay.

 

But he doesn't want to. It wouldn't be her. Not really. He wants her fight, her _strength_. The burn of her fury and the immovable rock of her stubbornness. A worthy opponent. An equal.

 

He wants her to give herself to him willingly.

 

Only now he’s had a taste he’s not sure he can ever be without her again. If she doesn’t stay he will make her. As much it would destroy him to do so.

 

He runs his tongue over the tender skin of his lip, tasting blood as he feels the sharp pull of her teeth again. The hard desperate scratch of her nails against his shoulders, clawing him closer. She has marked him as clearly as he had marked her.

 

How could she expect him to let her go now?

 

How could she want to leave him?

 

An angry pulsing need ripped through him when she shut him from her mind. He has reached for her again and again in the darkness, she is not yet skilled enough to hide her presence completely. He can feel it in the distance, a dull aching glow that tells him she is still on the ship at least, even if she won’t let him reach her.

 

This is a petty cruelty he can’t bear, to be  severed from her now. The anger boiling to the surface as he curses himself again and again for what he has done, for pushing too fast, too hard. And yet he can’t truly regret it either. For a moment she was his. For a moment he had seen clearly just how much she wanted him too.

 

An hour passes, then another. Time dragging as he obsessively reaches for her mind. The longer it takes the worse the feeling gets, turning to blinding panic at her absence. Overriding even the dark rage he’s built, the fury that she has dared do this to him, to weaken him so.

 

He needs to see her.

 

It’s been long enough, it’s time she stops running from him and faces this. He will drag her to her senses and back to his side where she belongs.

 

Whatever it takes.

 

Course set he’s halfway down the corridor before he realizes he’s forgotten his mask, turning angrily on his heel to retrieve it before setting out again. Determined to find her, to put things in order.

 

He searches the ship, methodically sweeping every corridor and corner as he seeks her. Following the faint trace of her powers. Mind focused at last, he completely ignores the shock and fear his appearance elicits in those he passes as he sinks deeper and deeper into the belly of the Finalizer in pursuit of her.

 

He stops on C-deck, stiffening as her power brightens against his shields. Closer than ever. A languid, hazy cloud he can’t seem to grip onto. He scans the corridor, nothing.

 

He circles the area three times to no avail, and yet he can feel her there.

 

Frustration clenches in his gut, balling his hands into fists at his side. A familiar black stab of rage at his inability to locate her. She’s here, he knows she is. He pushes against her mind again, feeling the amorphous wave of resistance. She’s so close he should be able to see her.

 

The muscle in his jaw twitches and he pushes harder, forcing the weight of his irritation, his fear, against the tremulous cloud of her mind. Slicing into it like a saber through durasteel.

 

Something metallic clatters inside the wall, followed quickly by a familiar high pitched curse.

 

He has found her at last then.

 

His heart seizes, every muscle unbearably tight as he tears the wall panel away, hurling it carelessly to the ground as he exposes her to the light.

 

It takes everything in him not to pull her physically from her hiding place, to haul her over his shoulder and carry her away kicking and fighting. She looks up at him, wide eyed with shock as her shields waver. Mind still clouded with confusion. With fear.

 

He finds himself swallowing tightly, planting his feet in place instead.

  


-

  


Rey wakes with a shout.

 

For a moment she doesn’t know where she is, what’s going on. For an absurd second she thinks she’s fallen asleep in her AT-AT, way back on Jakku, that a sandstorm has built up whilst she slept and the solar panelling has cracked loose from the outside of the hull again.

 

Then she remembers.

 

Before she has time to prepare herself the wall panel is torn away, the bright light blinding her for a split-second before being blacked out by a dark form, an emotionless mask peering into the hole.

 

Her heart stammers in her chest as the rest of her memories return.

 

“What do you want?” She asks, more breathless than she intended, rubbing the tender spot on her temple where she’d hit her head.

 

She’s unwilling to leave the safety of her hiding spot, feeling his annoyance skittering across the edges of her half-formed shields as he glowers over her.

 

R’iia, she hates that mask.

 

“Was your plan to avoid me forever?” He asks, voice distorted and metallic. “Like a petulant child?”

 

Red hot anger clenches in her stomach and she pulls herself out of the hole, forcing him back as she jerks her feet off the edge into his space. He doesn’t get to play that card. She wasn’t the one going around kissing people and ruining everything.

 

“Come to chastise me, _master?”_ She’s trembling with indignant rage. It’s the first and only time she will ever use that word. A bitter, venomous slap at everything he’s put her through. For a moment she thinks she’s gone too far, pushed too hard. Every muscle in his body tenses, his mind surging against hers in a sharp snap of darkness.

 

“Do you intend to willfully misunderstand everything today?” She can hear the tension in his voice even through that stupid mask. Feeling the flickering edge of hurt behind his shields. It settles beneath her rage, a pebble of guilt in her stomach. “Or will you be civil?”

 

“Civil?” The anger rises again and she welcomes it, letting it bolster her resolve as she glares up into the empty black space where his eyes should be. How dare he speak to her like this after everything. After he had used her, tried to own her. “You want me to be civil? Even now I know the truth? I’m… I’m _nothing_ to you. A puppet, a powerful toy. You can’t _own_ me, pick me up and throw me aside when you’re finished. I am not your plaything, Kylo Ren. I never will be.”

 

“You think that’s what I want from you?” He’s so startled she stumbles backwards, dark rage and bitterness assaulting her thoughts. “You think so little of me.”

 

“I don’t know what to think.” She folds her arms tightly against her chest, face burning. Her heart leaps at the sudden press of his powers, the taste of his horror that she could think that of him. It thunders through her with a sudden giddy hopefulness she’s ill-prepared for. She fixes her gaze somewhere over his shoulder, no longer able to look at him as the confusion clouds her thoughts.

 

“I don’t want a - a _plaything_. You are my apprentice.” She can feel the indignation rising in him, racing through her veins as he steps toward her. He reaches up unthinkingly and yanks the mask off, no grace in his movements now. Hair wild and snarled in front of red rimmed eyes. “You’re the only person in the universe who understands this power, you belong here. With me. You were made for it.”

 

Her breath catches traitorously at the admission. His words sinking beneath her armour, artless and anguished and she finds her hands itching with the memory of him. She clenches them tightly to stop herself from reaching out to him. From pushing the dark strands from his face.

 

“Prove it to me.” She almost can’t believe she’s said it, the words biting out without permission. He gives her a sharp, searching look.

 

“What?”

 

“Prove that I belong here.” Her heart stutters as she says it but she forges ahead. A strange, suicidal plan forming without her notice as she takes a bold step into his space. “I have seven weeks left on my contract. I’ll stay here, train with you. Prove to me that I can be a part of your world without losing mine, losing myself. That I am your apprentice, not your toy,  and- ” She hesitates, eyes squeezing shut for a split-second as she launches herself off the cliff. “And I’ll stay here afterwards, fully. With you.”

 

He can’t mask the elation in his face, the vicious shine of victory that touches his eyes. It settles low in her stomach, a bright confusing beat that has her insides swirling. She can see him about to reach for her but he stops himself, hands tightening at his side as he narrows his eyes at her. Almost hesitant. “And if I can’t convince you?”

 

“Let me go.” She sees the refusal that rises instantly in his gaze, a dark stab of panic that slices at her heart.

 

She waits, fighting to keep her breathing steady as he looks at her like she’s asked him if she can kill him. If she could slice his head from his shoulders and lay it at her feet. She can feel the strength of his power, the decades he has spent honing it into an unstoppable weapon of darkness. If he wanted too he could force her, make her stay. Make her want this.

 

If he does that it’s all over. She’d rather die than be under someone else’s control.

 

So she offers him the choice, and prays to gods she doesn’t believe in that he will make the right one.

 

After an eternity he nods. Mouth drawing in sharply in disapproval. “Very well.”

 

She can feel how much the words pain him. Aching in her as if it were her own. Forcing her nails into her palms to keep from reaching for him again, her body seemingly bound and determined to betray her. She nods instead.

 

She doesn’t know if he’ll stick to this resolve when the moment comes, if he’ll be able too. But she has hope. And in the meantime she will keep up her end of the bargain.

 

“You’ll have to-” She can see him editing his words again, some of the finesse returning to his measured voice. “Cut back your technician hours. If I am to have ample time to convince you.”

 

It’s a compromise she is more than willing to make now. She swallows hard and jerks her head,“I will.”

 

His eyes are bright in the harsh florescent light, burning right through her. His heavy gaze drifts to her mouth again, lingering over her bottom lip before shooting back up as if he’s realized what he’s done. Her heart stalls in her throat, anticipation flooding her veins.

 

Her muscles tighten, lips parting ever so slightly in readiness as he towers over her. Then she hears the steady march of armoured feet against metal, a squad of stormtroopers approaching.

 

“Until then.”

 

Like that he is gone and she is alone again. Gasping in the empty hallway as the storm troopers march past in formation, not sparing a glance at the flushed technician with the wide eyes.

 

R’iia, help her. What has she done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Just a quick ending note - the rating may *ahem* change next chapter... just a little heads up, hope no one minds ;-) ))


	16. Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rules of engagement are clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Thanks so much for the positive comments on the last chapter - I am very very pleased to hear so many of you were down with the ratings change! ;-)  
> This was originally quite a long chapter but my beautiful beta convinced me to cut it down into two shorter parts for better readability - so without further ado, I present to you the first part of the Smuttening. Leave ye now all who would not sin! ;-)
> 
> Rell. Babe. BABE. Life saver.))

 

He has been very careful not to touch her since the day of the kiss.

 

It has taken every ounce of his control but he has done it, kept himself from reaching for her time and again.

 

Her low opinion of him has scraped his pride bloody, a constant throbbing pain at the back of his mind even as an unfamiliar wave of elation grips him. _She will stay._ He knows it’s only a matter of time, he can see already how much the power he is offering calls to her. The worlds he could lay at her feet if she’d let him. If she would accept that he wants her as so much more than a curiosity, a toy.

 

There is nothing childish in the way he wants her, they are moths and flames alike.

 

Together they could have everything.

 

But he will not make the same mistake he made before. Careful not to push her before she’s ready to take that step, to accept the undeniable current that still surges between them. Until then he will keep his distance, no matter how far into madness it pushes him. His restraint stretched wafer thin as the need for her eats him alive.

 

He will not be mastered by this emotion, bound and determined to tame the beast that roars in him every time she brushes too close. Even if his eyes always fix on the way her hand lingers against her neck, back arching as she stretches before sparring. The way she bites down on her lip when he looks too long. The Maker could not have designed a more exquisite torture for him. He steels himself against it, the leader of the Knights of Ren should not be so easily broken.

 

He will endure it if she stays.

 

He will endure anything if she stays.

 

-

 

Days have passed and it’s only getting worse.

 

He hasn’t tried to kiss her again, although she feels his eyes on her more often than ever. An electric press against her skin. He stays always just out of reach, a permanent presence at her side without ever actually touching her. Her ever present shadow.

 

It’s unbearable.

 

She finds herself baiting him, almost unconsciously. A dangerous game she plays every time she deliberately draws out her stretches or bites her lip when he glances over. She wins it every time his dark eyes flash away, every time she see’s his shoulders stiffen with tension. And yet still he hasn’t made a move towards her again. It is as confusing as it is heady.

 

Her mind is obsessing over every accidental brush of skin, every lingering touch of his gaze. She wants him. Badly. He has awoken a heat in her unlike any before, a pulse of anticipation it’s becoming impossible to think through.

 

She is not as green as others may think though.

 

She’s picked far too many holomovies from the personal quarters of long gone pilots for that. The years have provided her with almost too much knowledge on that subject, showing her every possible physical expression of human desire. And non-human. Some of which she really wishes she hadn’t seen.

 

Until now it has been a curiosity, something she’s only entertained during the longest nights on Jakku when there was nothing more pressing to concern herself with.

 

But this. This is different.

 

This is so much more than desire.

 

The ache in her is growing with every hour she spends with him. A burning, twisting need that almost overpowers her. Consuming her until she has to draw it out of herself after their lessons just so she can breathe again, one hand between her thighs as she presses the other to her mouth to muffle his name. A furtive, shameful release as her roommates sleep.

 

She doesn’t know how much longer she can stand this.

 

They’re sparring today, saber against saber for the first time. She leaps at the chance, hoping the potential violence will do something to burn the fixation from her. That the heavy blows will alleviate the awful tension that’s solidified between them like a wall.

 

“Rules?” She asks, taking her position in the centre of training room and sliding her arms out of her jumpsuit. She secures the sleeves around her waist as he paces into the room. Looking anywhere but at her.

 

“Only one,” He throws her her saber, voice heavy against her spine as he takes up his stance. “Win.”

 

The buzz of plasma is instant and electric, but she’s ready for him this time. Deflecting his blow with ease as he launches into his first attack. Movements sharp and strong as he comes for her. She doesn’t have time to marvel at his skill this evening though, far too focused on the win.

 

She whirls her saber around, a rough approximation of one of the forms he’s taught her before she lets her instincts take over. Blocking and parrying in a violent dance that robs the air from her lungs until they are panting and desperate. They’re fighting dirty and they both know it, powers snatching and snapping at each other as they spar.

 

An invisible grip pulls at her ankles and she stumbles, the adrenaline rushing through her as turns the mistake into an advantage. Using the movement to push herself forward as she catches his well-aimed strike on the rebound. Slapping the weight of her powers against his chest as she presses him back. He is stronger than her by far but she forces herself forward, bolstering the movement with her abilities. The muscles in her shoulder burning as she throws every inch of her strength against his blade, plasma locked between them in an electric burst of red and blue.

 

He seems to retreat and for a half second her veins pulse with victory, then he’s whirling around in an arc so graceful it makes her heart stutter in her throat. Her back hits cold steel, barely able to block his strike as he leans into her. Everywhere at once as he fills her vision. Filling her head until all she can hear is the sizzle of their blades and the thunder of her pulse. All she can see is the dark breadth of his shoulders, the victorious glow of his eyes.

 

She knows he will disarm her at any second. Press his advantage and win this with ease, her arm already cramping where she’s attempting to hold him off. He’s so close she can feel the scrape of his tunic against every exposed inch of skin, feel his warmth through the shower of sparks falling from their interlocked sabers.

 

The tension that has built with each staggered blow has become too much for her, burning and boiling until she’s almost gasping with it. Trampling on her caution she launches herself away from the wall, deflecting the blow high and viciously pressing her lips to his. Rage and want mingling into one burning need.

 

He falters immediately, stumbling to a halt. Seeing her chance she takes it, body flush against him as she knocks the saber from his hand. A dark wash of desire pulsing through every nerve as she overpowers him with her kiss.

 

He draws back, black eyes sharp and searching.

 

“One rule,” She breathes against his mouth, suddenly trembling with adrenaline. “Win.”

 

He makes a sound she’s not convinced is entirely human, the surge of his emotions rolling over her like a wave as his hands bury themselves in her hair. He drags her back to his mouth with a strength that sends her reeling.

 

-

 

Ren presses forward, the sharp spark of desperation becoming an endless pulse as he kisses her with a fury he has never felt before.

 

It’s her turn to yield, saber falling to the floor as she struggles for purchase against the onslaught of his passion. He can feel her fingers grasping hopelessly at his shoulders as he chains her against him. There is no question this time as to motives or reason, there is only the pressure of his body against hers. The friction of their powers, struggling for control as he claims her mouth.

 

She trembles beneath him, heated flesh and ragged breathing as she offers herself up to him. The unbearable urgency that has built between them released at last in a flood.

 

He draws his mouth away, dropping to claim every inch of her exposed throat. Pressing hard, hot kisses to her untouched skin as she arches against him. He groans into the tender flesh at the nape of her neck, sinking his teeth in just enough to mark her. To prove again that she is his. She bucks beneath him, writhing at the sharp sensation. Her desire beats against his shields as he grabs at her hips, unable to fight it anymore as he drags her roughly against his body. She complies, willingingly, securing her legs tightly around his waist. He groans, feeling himself stiffen at the rough friction where there bodies meet.

 

He swallows hard, pulling back to meet her gaze, usually bright hazel eyes almost black with lust as he presses another desperate kiss to her. Unable to stop the force of his desires now she has broken this barrier between them. She gasps against him as he presses his hard length into her center. He needs more still, craving the feel of her skin. To see her, all of her.

 

Finding the hem of her shirt he draws it over her head, tearing her wrap away and lavishing his attention on the pale skin exposed there. The ivory of her chest a stark contrast to that of her sun-burned shoulders. His hips jerk without permission as she mewls beneath him, breathy tortured little noises of pleasure tearing from her as he takes the hardened peak of her breast between his teeth, slicking his tongue over the swollen flesh. The control is electric as she writhes beneath him, completely in his power as her hands tangle in his hair. Short nails scratching against his scalp and driving him to distraction.

 

He has needed this, needed her for longer than he has known. Her skin, her soul, all of her. To feel her submit to him even as she scrabbles back, hands tearing at his collar as desperate to taste his skin as he is for hers. A dance he has imagined for weeks.

 

He has been a figure of fear for so long this is almost unthinkable to him, the desire in her eyes fuelling his heart into such a frenzy he can barely feel it anymore. Pounding hard and fast in his ribs as he tries to clutch onto as much of her as he can. Greedily taking everything she will give him.

 

This desperate fumbling in the training room is not enough though, not now he has her in his power at last. Supporting her easily in his arms he guides them jerkily into the main room, dropping her carefully onto the black silk sheets. He settles himself above her, the familiar possessive beast in his soul roaring as he presses into her, trapping her beneath the weight of him. He drinks her in, her hair has come loose, haloing her in burnished bronze as she looks up at him. Her gaze is dark, longing, all lidded eyes and flushed cheeks as she tugs at him. Needing more.

 

Needing him.

 

He imagines this is what salvation feels like.

  



	17. Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are no rules now, only needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Well this chapter nearly didn’t happen but then it did :P Huge thank you to everyone still in to sin with me, I am so insanely grateful for your support I can't even begin to articulate it <3
> 
> And - just as a quick word to anyone who maybe isn’t so into this fic anymore - I totally get it, it happens! But could I politely request that you don’t tell me about it? I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you, or if it isn’t turning out as good as you hoped, but I’m literally writing this for kicks. ^^; Thank you for sticking around as long as you did and let’s part as silent friends, k? ;-)
> 
> This filth is dedicated to Rellie, for having to literally watch me hide behind my hair in an incoherent adolescent ball whilst she beta’d this. Twice. It’s a well known fact that I am not actually a grown adult, I’m actually three eight year olds in an overcoat.
> 
> Without further ado I am honoured to present The Smuttening... Part two... )

 

She has discovered that his eyes can stop her breathing.

 

One look as he leans over her is all it takes, black hair spilling against her forehead. Gazing at her like she’s  _ everything. _

 

She who has never been  _ anything _ .

 

For all of the touches, the heated pressure of his hands, his mouth, his body against her this is the most powerful. It traps the air in her lungs as she drinks in every line of his face. Memorizing every freckle and flaw in an instant, seeing him in a way she doubts anyone else has ever has. The sheets are impossibly soft against her back, hardly realizing he had moved them until gravity shifts and she’s landing in the center of his bed. The bed that has featured in so many of her fantasies. Fantasies which have utterly failed to live up to the fever, the unbearable intensity of this moment.

 

Her imagination has failed her entirely it seems.

 

She has wanted this since the day of the kiss, since before then if she’d dare to be honest with herself. He fascinates her in a way she doesn’t want to admit even to herself. Sinking deeper and deeper into his world only to find herself deprived of him after the fight. Craving the little brushes of contact, the pull of his power as he distanced himself from her. All thoughts of consequences, of reality, becoming entirely overridden by the heat in her veins. And now it’s actually happening she still can’t bring herself to question it.

 

The consequences don’t matter.

 

This is an inevitability. Like breathing. 

 

Like dying. 

 

The heat rises and she reaches for him again, an urgent need thrumming through her to feel his skin beneath her hands. To explore every inch of him as thoroughly as he has explored her until she can’t think at all. To take back some of the control he has stolen from her, sink her teeth into his collarbone, claw back her power even as she gives him everything she has.

 

Seeming to sense her desperation he reaches for his collar, tearing the tunic free, followed in no short order by his undershirt. She eyes him greedily, surging up from the mattress to taste the web of pink scars that trace his torso, wondering what could have happened to give him such a tangled mess of injuries. She drags her tongue over his collarbone as her hands skate across his back. 

 

It isn’t enough, not yet. She needs more. She needs  _ him. _

 

His hands find her waist, dragging the rest of her clothing from her body. She falls back into the pillows, hair fanning out around her as she kicks her legs free of her uniform realizing suddenly how entirely vulnerable she is beneath the hard press of his body. Entirely exposed in every way as his eyes devour her. She has never let herself be this unguarded before with another human being, a terrifying, beautiful fear wrapping itself around her chest as she looks up at him. 

 

She has never been more scared in her life, or more exhilarated.

 

No one has wanted her like this before. 

 

It’s addictive.

 

“Perfect.” He murmurs, voice low and rasping as he trails a hand almost reverently across her flushed cheek. She can hear her breath heavy in the air, the sound mixing with his as they hold each other's gaze. Then his hand drops, dragging teasingly across her neck, her chest and waist before sliding between the valley of her thighs.

 

“ _ Ren.”  _ The name falls from her lips without permission as she arches against him, eyes squeezing shut as his fingers slide into her. She hears the heavy catch of his breath as she groans his name, eyes fluttering open again to see the urgency in his face.

 

His hand moves, long fingers splaying inside of her and drawing fractured gasps from her throat as a familiar heat begins to build in her core. The control spiralling from her grasp with each jagged movement.

 

“Say it again.” He growls, voice desperate as he drops his face to her cheek, teeth catching on the soft shell of her ear. She bites down on her lip, taunting him with her defiance even as she swallows down a whimper. He presses into her more firmly, the rhythm building as her hands tighten against his shoulders. Nails digging in hard enough to draw blood as he skates his thumb across the slick nub of flesh above her entrance.

 

It’s too much. The steady motion curling in her stomach into a tight knot until she can’t keep from submitting.

 

“ _ Ren! _ ” She gasps. He eases off, teasing her as he draws away, fingers slowing against her, letting her breathe again.

 

A new determination grips her, unwilling to give up control that easily as she fumbles for his waist, hands skimming past his hip bones to feel the weight of him through the cloth still separating them. He groans, low in his throat, eyes darkening as he moves against her hand.

 

The power is almost as delicious as the pleasure he’s stoked in her, making her bold. Tugging at the fastening of his pants she draws them over his hips, his hand abandoning her just long enough to help. Pushing the fabric away and leaving them both exposed in the cool air of his quarters.

 

She smiles, wicked and flushed, as she wraps her hands around his length. The thrill of control growing as his eyes roll up at her fearless touch, and, if her attempts are clumsy from inexperience, he doesn’t seem to notice. The knowledge she can affect a man like  _ him _ like  _ this _ is almost too much for her. Filling her with the tantalizing need to make him just as desperate as he has made her.

 

“Rey,” He gasps as she mimics every holomovie she’s seen, stroking the unfamiliar weight of him until he’s jolting against her. “Maker, how-”

 

“Say it again.” She echoes his words, exalting in the ragged movement of his chest as the last scrap of his careful facade breaks completely at her touch.

 

“Rey.” He growls again, her desire spiking at the raw passion in his voice. He pulls her hands away, holding them captive above her head as he presses into her. “ _ My _ Rey.”

 

“Not yours- ” She gasps as he slides against her centre, teasing her with what she needs most. A flash of something dark, possessive lighting his eyes, making her stomach clench with want and worry. “Not-” Her independance sticks in her throat as the words turn to gasps. He taunts her, the power once more firmly in his hands as he moves against her. Just out of reach. Until she can’t remember why she’s resisting, why she doesn’t accept this, her pride buried beneath the burning in her veins. ”Yes.  _ Yours _ .”

 

“You’re  _ certain _ ?” He taunts her, but she can see the desperation in his eyes. Her eyes narrow, wishing she could be furious that he has brought her to this but unable to grasp it through the need. She bucks against him, capturing his hips between her thighs and watching his restraint waver.

 

“Don’t make me beg.” She breathes darkly, pulling her arms from his grasp and burying them tightly in his hair. Dragging his mouth to hers and kissing him with all the need in her soul.

 

He growls against her mouth, a possessive, primal noise that spreads from her chest all the way down to her toes, pressing into her at last.

 

She tenses as he enters her, back arching with a stunned gasp. The world spiralling apart at the unfamiliar heaviness as he slowly pushes in. She can feel every inch of him. His need, his loneliness, all of it sinking and stretching into her until she can’t tell which feelings are her own anymore.

 

The sensation is enough that she thinks she might break apart beneath him. Clenching at her core as he pushes deeper and deeper, gasping in sharp breaths as he braces himself above her. Skin scraping skin as he begins to move. She bites her tongue, hissing in pleasure as the careful pace he sets soon builds to a fury. Her hips rising up to meet him as their fight for control falls into an urgent joining, bodies working together as they give into the fire.

 

She savours each individual moment. The heat of him inside of her, the soft brush of his inky hair against her neck, the sound of each guttural gasp and moan she is eliciting from him.

 

Each thrust steals the breath from her lungs as she traces the scars on his back with her nails. Tasting the sweet salt of his throat as she learns each of his freckles by heart. Unable to keep the pleas from falling from her lips, over and over, begging for release as the tension builds. Her muscles drawn tight, driving closer and closer to the edge with every movement of their sweat slicked bodies.

 

“Rey,” He gasps, no taunts or teases this time. Just need, burning, blinding need. Unable to look away as she teeters on the knife’s edge. “ _ Rey. _ ”

 

Her name is a prayer on his lips, awed and aching as he drives into her. The feeling tightens within her. A longing she’s never known seizing her as she claws at his shoulders, his back, anything she can reach as stars burst in her veins. She can’t break her eyes from his, even as she thinks she will shake apart from the white hot sweep of it, clenching desperately around him as it courses through her.

 

She’s drowning in him, a willing death as his name tears free from her throat. Pleasure wracking her in feverish waves as she watches the emotions surge over his face. Looking at her like she is the only thing he wants in the universe. She gasps for one endless, breathless moment.

 

Then he is shouting her name, a shuddering groan as he tumbles over the edge after her. The delicious weight of him jerking inside of her as he spends himself completely. He slumps over her, gasping and glorious. Her hands stilling in his hair as she tries to remember how to breathe. Body tensing as aftershocks of pleasure shoot through her with every unsteady heartbeat.

 

The world is slow to return to her, for a long moment all she knows is the unsteady pulse of her heart. The rough sound of her breathing in the still air. Then the realization of what she has done, what she’s  _ said, _ strikes her. Fast and hard. Settling like a stone between her ribs.

 

Nothing will ever be the same now.

 

 


	18. Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old scars in new light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Holy Martha you guys! Damn. DAMN. How can I even begin to coherently express my amazement at this fandom? How can you possibly ALL be this freaking kind and supportive? I'm calling it now, at least 50% of you have been paid by my parents to be nice to me. I'm not complaining, it's wonderful ~<3 Paid or not, I sincerely hope you enjoy this chapter, gang! ;-)
> 
> Rellsbear. Noble Wordtress. I'm almost certain we have an actual RL Force Bond at this point. I'm pinching myself - can you feel it?))

 

Everything has changed for him.

 

The world turning on this intimacy he had never contemplated allowing himself before  _ her _ . A primal act he has always thought to be unnecessary to his life’s true purpose, low and unworthy of him. Of this legacy.  Something that would taint him. 

 

He has been utterly foolish.

 

There is nothing low about this. 

 

Quite the contrary. He found a power in her body he had never felt before. A strength in the circumference of her arms, the weight of her trust. And, whilst he had rendered himself vulnerable before her, he had never felt more powerful.

 

His eyes drift over her, flushed and breathless beside him in the bed he has only ever slept in alone. Feeling the storm of her emotions against his own as she gazes at his ceiling with parted lips. 

 

_ Yes. Yours _

 

Her words echo in his mind, a tight band of warmth beneath his ribs that sets his heart racing anew.

 

They have been fashioned for each other. Each broken edge and sorrow-sanded point interlocking like puzzle pieces. 

 

He is about to reach for her, to pull her back to him and lace her in his arms, when she rises. Brushing the hair from her face, quick-fingers dancing through it as she braids it back. The thick cord falling just below the pale skin of her shoulder blades. He is not the only one with scars it seems. Her back, her waist, the curve of her hips are all dusted with faint white lines. A darkness rises in him at the sight of them, a raw determination to find and kill anyone who has ever dared hurt her. But that can wait. There are more pressing things to think of now.

 

Like the way she is moving, pulling herself away from his mattress. Away from him.

 

He can only look on in silent horror as she goes, her shields rising as she searches for her discarded clothing. Body turned almost modestly from his eyes.

 

“Where are you going?” He asks, surprising himself with the words as he struggles up on his elbows to better look at her. Confusion running ragged through his blood as the after-beat of pleasure still tugs at him. Begging him to lie back down, to rest. Only he needs her beside him for that now. 

 

Rey startles, glancing back at him with wide eyes. Almost as if she’d forgotten he was there. Almost as if she’d dismissed him already.

 

“Back… to my quarters.” It’s almost a question. Her confusion rising with the colour in her face as she hesitates at the foot of the bed. Slipping into her underthings as if the last hour hasn't happened at all. “My shift starts at eight and I’d kind of like some sleep before then.”

 

“Stay.” He’s not sure if it’s a command or a plea. He finds his feet, the cool hush of his quarters a stark contrast to the warmth of the bed. Of her. It seems almost ridiculous how she flushes, eyes averted from him as she moves away. That she has suddenly discovered shyness now, after the things they’ve done.

 

“I can’t.” She says to the air as she disappears into the training room in search of her lost shirt. “The others might notice.”

 

A bolt of anger shoots through him, a hollow humiliation that this has clearly not moved her the way it’s moved him. He pauses just long enough to pull his pants on before following her. Shadowing her footsteps as she appears again, brushing past him to retrieve her jumpsuit and shimmy back into the ugly navy fabric. Lamenting every inch of flesh she covers, every inch she puts back between them.

 

“You said you were going to cut down your hours.” It's a bitter accusation. The cold wash of anger overshadowing any softness left in his soul as he watches her try to walk away from this. Like everything hasn’t changed.

 

Like she hasn’t given herself to him, willingly.

 

“I have,” Her brow creases as she turns to look at him at last, frowning up at him in confusion. As if she doesn't know what she's doing to him. “I never said I’d give it up completely though.”

 

“Hmm.” The darkness that’s swelling between his ribs grows, beating blackly in his chest as she gazes up at him. Her pretty words were just that. False promises. He sees himself through her eyes at last; a possessive, desperate fool of a man. He turns away from her, hunting through his quarters for his own undershirt and pulling it on so fast he almost tears it.  _ Fool.  _ His mind taunts him.  _ Why would she want to stay here, with you?  _

 

_ With a monster? _

 

“I’ll be back later.” She says, two steps behind him and frowning still. Her mind now pushing hazily against him as she tries to read him. He slams shut the gates, she will not read his weaknesses that easily. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

 

“Fine.” He locks his shields down tightly, looking anywhere but at her as his fingers fumble at the fastening of his tunic. Made clumsy by his own bitter anger. He wonders how this could possibly be such a shock to him now, she had run from him before, after all, and that was just from a kiss. The destruction of this boundary is sure to send her from him completely. He is certain it is only a matter of time before she turns her back on him, destroying him entirely with her unfeelingness.

 

A hand lands over his, small and warm and so sudden it makes his heart leap into his throat. Stilling him as effectively as if she’d seized him with her powers and forced him in place.

 

“Ren--” his name on her lips is a revelation, not a breathy gasp or guttural moan. It sounds…  _ familiar _ . Irritated even.

 

He turns to her, letting her step into his space as her hand slowly lifts away, rising almost self-consciously to brush a loose strand of hair from her face. Shoulders squared stubbornly as he watches her talk herself into saying whatever it is that is making her mind so turbulent. 

 

When she looks up at him, her eyes have narrowed into something like a glare. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

 

He can see a thousand questions behind the fire in her eyes, a thousand worries and uncertainties. But there is something else too, a bright, fragile light that flickers behind it. A recognition of what has occurred. Of what they are becoming. 

 

His heart leaps at it. The warmth returning in a rush that nearly knocks the air from him.

 

“Stay.” He says again, trying to make it into an instruction. A command from master to apprentice, nothing softer. Not as lovers. A feeble attempt at disguising his own need. 

 

She glances at the time piece on her jumpsuit guiltily and he can feel her resolve wavering.

 

“Are you sure?” She says, and he realizes with a start his own insecurities have made him blind to hers. There is something vulnerable behind the guards in her eyes, a half-feral animal. Wanting and yet wary still.  “Don't you have… things...  to do?”

 

He realizes with a sharp precision exactly what it will take to keep her now. He must still the fever of his own desires. Slowly, carefully, coax her across that final threshold and into his power for good. Her independence is beautiful, but not when raised against him. No, he should be the one person she trusts implicitly.

 

“I’m sure.” He watches her closely, evaluating every twist and turn in her expression. “There is time. You can rest here a while.”

 

His heart clenches as he waits for her answer. She stares up at him, like she can see right into him. For a moment he’s almost… afraid. Scared of what she will find there. Then she’s nodding and all he can feel is the sharp, satisfying pulse of victory.

 

“Just for an hour or two.” She says, face colouring again as she looks away. “That’s it though.”

 

He follows her back to the bed, watching her as she shrugs almost angrily out of her jumpsuit and climbs between the sheets. His tunic is abandoned on the floor as he lays himself down beside her. She doesn't curl up against him, like he thought she might, or wrap herself in his arms. She rolls onto her side instead, back to him beneath the covers as he feels her breathing slow.

 

She's not asleep, not really. He knows now that she will not let herself be that vulnerable that soon with him, not after the barriers she's already dropped to him today. Her wariness stinging him even though he lets himself revel in the acquiescence she’s already shown. It's a step, a sign.

 

His path is true.

 

All he needs is time.

 

-

 

“You’re late, Rey.” Vahna’s voice cracks against her, whip-sharp as Rey rushes into the locker room flushed and panting with her bag careening off her arm. “I’m docking your wages.”

 

Time had slipped away from her. Resting longer than she intended beneath the black sheets of his beds. She had slipped into a meditative trance without realizing it, the steady sound of his breathing at her back turning into a strange sort of lullaby as she picked apart the events of the evening.

 

The things she said when she couldn’t stop herself.

 

The admission that in some small, terrifying way she has become his.

 

Her mind rebels, blaming the slip on the need of the moment. On desire rather than truth, but now she’s not so sure of herself and it haunts her. She can no longer tell if she’s losing herself in him or finding herself. He brings out all the worst things in her, the anger, the darkness. But he’s fuelling the good too. He is making her stronger than she ever dared dream, and the way he looks at her…

 

She’s never been important to anyone before. Not on Jakku, not with the technicians, not even with her own  _ family _ . But he looks at her, touches her, like she’s something important.

 

Like she’s precious and powerful and  _ strong. _

 

She thinks again how addictive he could become to her. How maybe, if she let him claim her as his own, she could claim him too. Two halves of a broken whole, never alone again. Her heart thumps strangely at the thought. Of what it might be like to have everyone know that, of all of the people in all of the galaxy, the feared Kylo Ren bowed only to her.  _ Cared only for her _ .

 

She shudders at the appeal of it, wondering if he’d even let her. If he’d welcome the possessive heat that’s rising in her or shut it out completely. 

 

Her heart sinks sharply as a thought spears her. Ren has been claimed already. She knows all too well the stories of his true master, even if she has been so swept up recently as to forget him completely. Seeing again the nightmarish vision in the stone cavern, the dark horror she has fought so hard to repress. 

 

She cannot compare to the power Snoke offers him, no matter how tainted it is.

 

Not when all she has to offer him is herself. 

 

“Well?” Vahna balls her hands against her hips, somehow managing to look down on Rey despite being four inches shorter than her. Her words are short, sharp. Vahna doesn’t shout, she doesn’t need to. “Aren’t you going to give me an excuse? A reason why your colleagues have had to take up the slack of you swanning off?”

 

Slammed back into the moment guilt heats her face as she struggles for the words. For an excuse for her actions that will be palatable for the stern leader. The urge to override her mind is instant and insistant, a dark pulse that she has to fight back as she meets her eye. She has messed with Vahna’s brain enough this week, she has already pressed the Galactech leader into altering Rey’s hours and fixing the schedule so she can spend more time with her... mentor.

 

“I’m sorry,” Rey says, chin ducked respectfully as she struggles to keep the blush from her face. The memory of what really happened in those hours overcoming her. “I overslept.”

 

“Not good enough, Rey.” Vahna scowls, slamming the shift card over Rey’s data-pad. “I expect better of my technicians. Ship up or you'll be dropped the minute this mission is over.”

 

“Yes, Vahna.” The guilt surges, a pulsing anxiety that swims through her. It’s not quite enough to overcome the feeling brewing beneath it though, the dark, angry pulse that has began to beat in her chest.  A quiet kind of rage that has built with every word her  _ leader _ has said.

 

“Dismissed.” Vahna waves her with a weary sort of disappointment, the dismissal of a woman who has seen many time wasters in her years and has been forced to assign Rey to their ranks. She has been measured by her sharp gaze and found wanting, lumped in with those unable or unwilling to do what’s necessary for the job.

 

Rey’s teeth clench at the tone, she didn’t let people talk to her like that before she knew what she was capable of. Now she knows her own strength it takes every ounce of her control to shoulder the feelings. To accept the beration as if she were errant child or uncooperative animal. They do not know her power. 

 

She could make them all puppets of her will, string them out and watch them dance. Change their thoughts and feelings on a whim. Make them beg.

 

Rey stamps the thoughts down, a hard swift kick against the darkness. She takes her punishment gracefully and moves to her locker, she’ll be working a cable shift on the G-deck. It will take hours, a long, drawn out fix that will test her patience as she goes about the repetitive task. She can feel her arms aching already with the thought.

 

She’s in no mood to chat when Jay corners her as she sorts through her tools, shouldering his way into her personal space with his usual broken grin.

 

“Rey!” His voice too loud as he elbows her, she flinches at the contact. “You missed mid-month madness!”

 

“Huh?” Her eyes shoot up in confusion as snaps on her belt. Wishing he’d move away. Leave her to settle her mind in peace.

 

“They had Mastian steak and everything.” He crosses bulky arms in front of his chest, leaning into her. She takes a half step back, still trying to re-acclimatize herself to this place. To what he’s talking about. Forcing herself back into this world of endless repair work and tired consolations.

 

Mid-month madness had been one of the highlights of her working life before, the second Primeday of the month where all the fresh produce the B-rank canteens didn’t use was cooked up and fed to the lower ranks before it went off. It was practically a religious occasion to the technicians and troopers, Rey had had vivid dreams over last month’s Nyork Chowder for days after. 

 

She had forgotten all about it now though.

 

“I uh - was really caught up with work.” She shrugs, focusing her attention on sorting her tools and not looking at him. Hoping he’ll get the message. “There’s always next month though.”

 

“Jeez. First you miss feast day, then you get chewed out by the boss lady for being late,” He laughs at her, running thick fingers through his bristly blonde hair. “You’ve gotta get your head out of the cosmos, Rey. Can’t fall apart now.”

 

“My head isn’t anywhere.” She snaps, feeling her irritation spike. “It’s hardly a big deal.”

 

“Woah, touchy!” He throws up his hands, still grinning at her. She resists the urge to knock the smile right off his face. “The Captain was there anyway so it wasn’t like we could savour it. Hey, want to hear the new gossip?”

 

_ Not really _ , she wants to say. But she’s raised enough suspicion for the day. 

 

“Can it wait till lunch?” She asks, making a final check of her bag before shouldering it. “I’m in enough trouble with Vahna as it is, if she catches me hanging about now she’ll probably throw me out of the air lock.”

 

He laughs, the deep booming sound setting her teeth on edge as he waves her away. “Get on with you then. It’ll wait.”

 

Flicking him a half smile she doesn’t feel, she heads for the door. Only making it two steps into the hallway before she’s cornered again. Zalya grabs her arm and drags her into the side, her anxious energy buzzing against Rey’s tired shields. 

 

“Where were you?” Her roommate hisses, green eyes popping against her dark skin. “You didn’t return to the room at all last night! I know Yalza said you needed space but you can’t do that-”

 

“I was out, okay?” Rey snaps defensively, feeling her powers rising instinctively to the surface as Zalya’s mind digs into hers. Annoying and intrusive as she projects her worries loud enough for anyone to hear. “How is it any of your business?” 

 

She doesn’t have to keep explaining herself to these people. She doesn’t have to explain herself to  _ anyone. _

 

“Look I’m just trying to let you know we’re here for you.” Zalya gnaws on her bottom lip, fixing Rey in a sympathetic stare as the slender hand tightens around her wrist. “You’re never around, you’re always distracted. We’re all worried about you.”

 

The guilt Rey thought she’d buried rises to the surface, the bitter pang becoming a cold pulse of anger as she snatches her arm away from the other technician.

 

“Don’t be.” She straightens her shoulders as she pulls away. She has been humiliated too many times already this morning. She doesn’t need Zalya’s pity too. “I’m fine.”

 

Zalya trails after her as she walks away, mouth already opening to say something more. To sink more knives into Rey’s already fragile mind. 

 

Rey snatches her power around the other woman’s legs, stilling her as she dashes away. Only releasing her hold when she’s around the corner. It’s a stupid use of her powers, foolhardy. But if she hears one more word from anyone she’ll scream. 

 

She almost runs down to the lowest level of the ship, a world of steam pipes and grime.  Anger and bitter guilt chasing her as she finds her allotted work area. 

 

_ What do they want from her? _

 

What could she possibly say to them?

 

If they knew the truth they’d shun her completely, cut her out with fear in their eyes. The idea of it is not as horrifying as it once was. At least then they’d leave her alone.

 

She pulls open the rusting panel, slipping herself into the burning space and trying to breathe through the sudden overwhelming stink of sulfur vapour and rot. It’s a suffocating world of red lights and scalding metal but she’s alone at last.

 

It takes everything in her to remind herself why she’s doing this. Why she’s not giving this up, trading this pitiful existence for the life Ren has offered her.

 

“This is mine.” She whispers to herself as she disconnects the old fuse and starts to install the carbon wires. “I chose this.”

 

It almost doesn’t feel enough anymore. An uneasy, unpleasant weight settling in her gut as she tears out the old lines.

 

_ This is mine. I chose this. This is mine. I chose this. _

 

She repeats the words to herself again and again as she works, trying to replace the breathless memories of her time with him with the cool burn of her independance.

 

Trying to recall how right it feels to make her own decisions, to choose her own path.

 

Although it would be her own decision to stay with him always, wouldn’t it? Her choice to give up this drudgery to dedicate herself fully to the power he offers.

 

Her heart stutters and she forces it down, it is a dangerous train of thought that she doesn’t have to dwell on yet. She has six weeks left. Six weeks before she has to weigh up the price of her future. 

 

The dangers she would have face to stay by the side of a man she can never truly have. The cost of living a half-life of menial labour alone, without him. 

 

For now though she must keep her independence, suffer the humiliation of her work silently. But she can still daydream of her other life, the power and desire. It will all be waiting for her in the evening.

  
That and so much more.


	19. Excuses Excuses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are the lies we tell each other, and the lies we tell ourselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Thank you so so much to everyone still reading - It really means so much to me that you've decided to stick with me on this crazy journey! <3 I don't think I'll ever be articulate enough to explain how much I appreciate every single kind word and comment you take the time to leave - it really does make my world so much brighter! :D
> 
> Rellerella, although I am slightly convinced you're a figment of my imagination and an oncoming sign of my complete break from reality I'm still so glad to have you on board! You are the best.))

 

 

Rey avoids the others for two full days.

 

Her head has been far too full of her other world to let her sit comfortably in their presence. Her life in the lower decks doesn’t quite fit right anymore, getting more uncomfortable every day as she tries to force herself back into it. She heads for the canteen after her morning shift, hoping that today will be different.

 

Jay’s telling a story about the time a whole squadron of Stormtroopers got trapped on D-level after the blast door froze and had to form a human pyramid to escape. Rey finds herself laughing as she sets down her tray. A sudden rush of relief coursing through her as she drops into her seat, the others acknowledging her as if nothing has changed between them. As if this is any other lunchtime since they’ve been on board.

 

Even Zalya offers her a small smile. They haven’t spoken much since their last encounter, skirting awkwardly around the incident whenever they meet. Rey can tell she’s upset with her, skimming her mind just enough to get a sense of what she knows, but at least Zalya doesn’t suspect the truth. Putting the pull of Rey’s powers down to her own body failing her.

 

Rey smiles back brightly, earning a relieved nod in return. Maybe things can go back to normal after all.

 

“And then the poor sucker in the middle started wobbling, right-” Jay throws his arms wide as he ramps up to the conclusion. “And the whole bloody lot of them go tumbling down like skittles _just_ as us Techs on the other side get the door open. It was mayhem, I laughed so hard I almost broke the panel again.”

 

Everyone laughs, Rey snickering along with them as she picks up her fork.

 

She’s barely taken her first bite before Jay’s launching into the new story.

 

“ _Now,_ Since Rey’s joined us at last I can tell you all about the strange new behaviour of Kylo Ren.” Jay says. Rey’s stomach twists violently, almost choking as she carefully places the fork back down. Jay doesn’t seem to notice, face glowing with barely constrained glee as he nods at her. “You’ll like this one kid.”

 

She doubts it. The world has suddenly spun on her again and she realizes sharply just how far she’s come from being _that_ girl. The one who could gossip with them freely, the one who only saw the story, the mask. She knows too much of the man beneath it now to bear this.

 

“So, my buddy down on fourth pulls me aside the other day and tells me this. Apparently it’s well documented, anyway - Lord Ren was actually seen below B-deck last week! The reason?” He pauses dramatically, drawing everyone in. “He was out for _blood._ ”

 

Her heart leaps into her chest. She knows what day he’s talking about, and exactly what it was that drew him down into the underbelly of the ship. Remembering the moment he found her in the wall panel in perfect detail, the compromise, everything that happened after. Her every muscle draws tight as she waits, fighting back the urge to dig her powers into Jay’s mind to discover exactly how much he knows. To shut him up before he can start.

 

“Maker, why?” Yalza asks through a mouth full of meal-bread,

 

“ _Apparently_ a low ranking crew member offended him and he - Hunted. Them. Down,” Jay leans over the table, each word accompanied by a stab of his fork into food. A sick squish to accompany his story. “ _Killed them._ It was savage. Blood everywhere when he split their skull with his laser sword, _”_

 

The fear becomes a shock of rage. She bites her tongue, not saying a thing to correct him. Not mentioning that lightsabers cauterize wounds. That there is nothing savage in Ren’s movements when he fights. He is grace and brute strength combined. She swallows down the words with the bitter taste of anger.

 

“If he did that, why haven’t we heard about it?” Lim offers, pale face already twitching at the mention of the infamous Lord Ren, nine weeks on board and he still isn’t comfortable talking about him in daytime hours. “I’m pretty sure we would have heard about it.”

 

“They hushed it up, of course.” Jay waves a hand, as if everyone should already know this _obvious_ information. “They have a whole crew dedicated to clean up his messes.”

 

The fact that this ludicrous rumour is circulating in place of the truth should make Rey breathe easier. They have not discovered her, still as ignorant as ever to her extracurricular activities. But it doesn’t. The darkness is still pulsing there, rising at their gleeful dissection of _him_.

 

They know Ren even less than they know her.

 

“I can believe it,” Zalya says quietly, face twisting in disgust. “They’d definitely cover it up. Maker, I know he’s supposed to protect the First Order but he’s just so.… _monstrous_. I can’t wait till we’re done with this mission.”

 

The word drives sharp knives into her, almost crippling her with anger. With guilt and fear. She imagines their reactions if she spoke up now. If she told them the truth of her evenings. Of what she’d seen of the man behind the mask.

 

They would look at her as a monster too.

 

There’s a part of her, a perverse, self destructive part of her, that wants to tell them. To open her mouth and reveal exactly what she knows of him. And how little they know of her. To see first hand the horror she knows would dawn over them. Her worst fears confirmed.

 

“Me too.” Yalza chips in, the words coming from a great distance as Rey drowns in her own thoughts. “He gives me the creeps. Remember when we saw him rip that console apart ? Rey - Rey?”

 

The fork drops from her hand as she comes too. Stomach churning as she struggles against the surge of emotions, fighting to control them. To store them away like he’s taught her, until they can be useful.

 

“Rey, are you alright?” Zalya asks, wariness still clear in her face as she leans around her twin to look at her.

 

“No,” She says, honestly, finding her feet and scooping up her untouched tray. “I just remembered I left my magwrench in the middle of wall panel two floors down. Vahna’s going to kill me if she finds out.”

 

The others laugh, accepting her story without too much of a fuss as she turns on her heel away from them.

 

“Maker speed!” Jay laughs as she waves them goodbye.

 

She can hear them talking about her as she leaves the room, drifting words about her lack of concentration. Her ‘space-fatigue’ as it’s known amongst the veterans, a common enough condition for planet-locked people like her.

 

Let them gossip.

 

She runs to clock in early to her next shift, praying it will distract her from the sick weight of darkness that’s growing inside of her at their words.

 

The day doesn’t get any better. Another long shift, dragging late as she struggles to keep her mind on the hellish task of rewiring cables on G-Deck and off of the knot of anger and hunger that has formed in her stomach. By the time she finishes she barely has time to shower and shove on a clean uniform before she’s running the gamut of the ship to his quarters.

 

Her sanctuary after the day from hell.

 

-

 

He can feel her anger growing as the day goes on, the sharp spike of it at midday nearly drawing him from his own work and to her side. He fights it back, keeping a watchful eye on her powers as he forces himself to continue with his own duties.

 

It is nothing if not a struggle, but he is starting to at last make some headway in his search for the final piece of the map. The beginnings of progress as an old lead becomes new. There are rumours that the piece is in the possession of a supposed holy man, a relic of the Church of the Force that Ren had long thought dead. A ghost from his past he would rather stay dead. But if it will get him what he needs he will pursue it wholeheartedly.

 

If he can track them he can find the map, if he finds the map he can destroy Skywalker and end this quest at last. Fulfil his destiny and face the future with a clean slate. Renewed. With Rey at his side.

 

He only drops the search when he feels her approach, more than glad to turn away from this tedium for the night in favour of her company. He can learn nothing more until the morning anyway, when he can marshall his knights and send them out to search for him. For now he will forget the stress of the hunt and focus on her instead.

 

Her arrival is heralded by a wave of bitter anger, she has had an even more tedious day than him it seems. She storms in like a hurricane, the repressed fury sparking in her hazel eyes and stealing his breath as she heads straight for the case where her lightsaber rests.

 

“Something has disturbed you.” He asks as she pulls it open, watching her palm the metal hilt. Her shoulders rise at the contact, taking a deep steadying breath like he has taught her.

 

It isn’t enough to keep her anger in check.

 

“My shift overran, my workmates are idiots, and I haven’t eaten in twelve hours.”  She bites the words out through clenched teeth, eyes narrowing as the rage pulses beneath her shields. “Can we fight now?”

 

“You would make me the target of your anger.” He can’t keep his mouth from twitching up as she marches past him, turning back in impatient surprise when he doesn’t immediately follow her. There is something so _innocent_ about this anger, in the petulant pout of her lips. The stubborn set of her brow. Childishly simple in contrast to the true depths of rage he has felt in her soul.

 

“Maybe.” She flushes, cheeks heating under his gaze as she avoids his eye. “But you are the one who says-” Her voice drops as she tries to imitate him. “‘ _Rage is best channeled into strength._ ’”

 

“Indeed. Although... there is another option,” He crosses to her side, catching her wrist lightly and pulling the saber from her unresisting finger. Her eyes fly up, bright and breathless even as she tries to glare at him. “I will summon a droid, then you can at least eat before attempting to kill me with impunity.”

 

Confusion flickers across her brow. “You can do that?” The colour rises again as she looks away, “And I wasn’t going to try and _kill_ you.” He can see the humour flicking in her eyes as she adds under her breath. “Just rough you up a bit.”

 

“Of course.” He has to suppress a laugh as she glares at his shoulder, running a gloved finger lightly across her chin before turning away. He punches the request into the data panel in the wall, fingers moving automatically over the display. “It’s important that you keep your strength up after all, apprentice.”

 

_Apprentice._

 

It is sounding more and more like a term of endearment now, even as he tries to convince himself he uses it to distance them. To remind her that, although they are on the road to equals, she has a long way to go yet before she is his match in skill. He’s no longer sure it’s so true.

 

She has yet to attain his level of knowledge but she’s already so powerful.

 

And it angers him that the denizens of the ship are not recognizing it, not affording her the respect she deserves as his apprentice. They should be bowing to her, trembling before her power. Instead they shun and snap at her, practically pushing her into his arms. Severing the ties that bind her to them more effectively than he ever could.

 

All he has to do now is wait, holding himself back and letting her come to him. Offering careful little brushes of contact only, drawing her further into his arms in with every passing day. It’s a struggle to control his desperation for her, but it makes it so much sweeter when she comes to him. Pressing herself into him when their lessons are through and letting him kiss her at last. There is no need for such subtlety when the barrier is dropped, then he can give into the heat. Heady and passionate as he pulls her to him like a dying man, each time as urgent as the first.

 

He swallows tightly, pushing the heated wave of desire that has risen with the thought down. Reaching for her mind instead and running his powers over her emotions. Reading the mix of anger and confusion that still sit beneath the surface. Feeling them fade with each passing second until, when the door buzzes at last, she’s almost calm.

 

Rey gives him a look of confirmation before opening it, an unconscious sign of deference that sends his blood racing anew. The service droid rolls in with a respectful beep, following the path to the table automatically.

 

He focuses his attention on her, turning his gaze away from the dull gray machine. He finds them a distasteful necessity, something about their metallic sentience unsettles him. They cannot be read, _pushed_. He prefers the malleable warmth of a human mind every time.

 

It seems that Rey doesn’t share his distaste. She follows in its wake, lifting the tray from it before it can even reach the table. She even says a quiet thank you before it leaves.

 

Of course she would like droids. Despite his teachings her compassion still extends to all pathetic creations it seems. He wonders if he should be grateful for it, not entirely certain he doesn’t fall into the catagory himself anymore.

 

He forces the thought down as as she sits herself at the table, turning an unexpected smile on him. Her anger is long forgotten it seems. She looks almost... shy. He clears his throat, seating himself carefully beside her as she uncovers the tray.

 

He removes his gloves automatically, tucking them into his belt as he pulls his chair closer than strictly necessary to her. Unable to tear his eyes away from the light in her eyes as she fumbles with the containers. In some absurd way this feels more startlingly intimate than anything they’ve done.

 

Painfully mundane, and yet somehow entirely novel to him.

 

She sets the little metal bowls of food between them, delighting in every dish she uncovers. He can feel her hunger now, surging sharply beneath her shields with the smell of the food. She has been masking it well, an indication that she is far too used to it for his comfort.

 

“They only sent one fork.” She frowns, rummaging around the tray in case there is another hiding beneath it. Still thinking of him despite her obvious own need.

 

“I’ve already eaten.” He lies, pushing the food towards her. She needs her strength if she is to serve as his apprentice after all, she is no use to him half-starved. He turns away, suddenly unable to meet her eye.

 

“Oh.” Her confusion is bright, paired sweetly with concern as he feels the weight of her eyes on him. “Are you sure?”

 

He nods tightly, carefully shielding his mind from the inquisitive push of her power. She regards him for a long moment before the lure of the food wins out, giving a half shrug as she picks up her fork.

 

There is nothing elegant about her table manners, she eats with a single-minded determination that makes him worry exactly _how_ long she has had to go without before. The darkness that rises at the thought turning sharply to fear as she freezes after one hastily crammed mouthful. Her eyes squeezing tightly shut.

 

His heart thunders as her shoulders stiffen, reaching automatically for her mind with his powers. She waves a hand at him, pushing back the concern as she swallows hard. Her shields drop and suddenly all he can feel is her delight, almost painful in it’s intensity as she starts hacking off another mouthful.

 

“You eat this everyday?” She asks, voice raw with wonder between bites. “All the time?”

 

“Of course.” His brow creases in confusion, it is hardly an extravagance. A well balanced dish of kommerken steak, ghoba rice and fresh kibla greens. Designed for nutritional value more than flavour.

 

Her reply is nonsensical, a garbled noise of enthusiasm as she wolfs down steak like he might change his mind and take it away from her at any second. He wonders again how harsh her life must’ve been, must remain, that she can be so overwhelmed by something as simple as this.

 

His stomach tightens as a certainty rises in him like fire.

 

As long as he breathes she will never go hungry again.

 

Decision made he settles back in his seat, letting his eyes drift over her again. Her enjoyment washing over him in warm waves, something possessive sparking in his chest at the sight of her entirely unguarded enjoyment. That he has done this for her.

 

“If I knew a decent meal was all it took to sway you to my side,” He says, mouth twitching wryly at her flushed face. “I would have done this weeks ago.”

 

She laughs at that, a _true_ laugh, loud and surprised in the still air. Almost choking on a mouthful of rice as she slows down just long enough to swallow. Her cheeks flushing brighter as she waves a hand in front of her face.

 

It is the first real laugh he’s ever earned from her, the sound catching in his chest. Becoming something bright, burning, as he struggles to keep his emotions focused. Controlled.

 

“R’iia,” She says when she has finally caught her breath, invoking an old god he doesn’t know as she lifts the half empty dish. “Keep this up and you’ll never get rid of me.”

 

“I would never want to.” He says it lightly but there is a blinding truth behind the words. Buried deep into his bones. He doubts she realizes it now, too consumed with her enjoyment as she beams at him again from behind her fork. But one day perhaps she'll understand it.

 

Understand the lengths he'd go to to convince her stay.

 

 


	20. Pushing Boundaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are not quite demands, and not quite concessions. But little by little the boundaries are shifting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you to everyone still reading and enjoying the story! I really truly appreciate your kind words so much! <3  
> I'm sorry that updates might be a little patchy over the next few weeks! ^^;
> 
> Rellatrix, thank you for everything you magnificent sunbeam! :D

 

 

 

“I will be leaving the ship tonight”

 

Rey snaps to attention at the sound of his voice. She’s been sitting cross legged in the middle of the room since daybreak. Another night spent in his quarters. She should feel guilty but she doesn’t, perhaps she’s too selfish for that. Too glad not to have to be alone anymore.

 

And the extra hours training mean she’s learning faster than ever.

 

He’s been pushing her to improve her Force concealment skills, something that involves a lot more sitting still and concentrating than she likes. Not that she complains, she knows that if she asks him to spar with her tonight he won’t refuse.

 

“I would like for you to accompany me.”

 

It’s not a demand. Not quite. But she stiffens anyway, an immediate refusal springing to her lips. Her work, her colleagues, all the reasons she shouldn’t go jumping to the front of her mind.

 

She swallows them, looking up at him instead. “What would it entail?”

 

His head tilts, she’s surprised him as well then. Her curiosity winning out over her wariness as she automatically accepts his hand as he reaches out to help her rise. Finding it entirely irrational that the simple touch can still make her heart roll over like a fighter avoiding laser fire.

 

“It is only a short flight to a neighbouring system. There is...” He hesitates, “a small matter I must attend to there.” His hand lingers around hers as if unwilling to let her go. “We would return long before your _shift_ begins.”

 

He still refers to her other life with derision, but the fact he has phrased it like this, acknowledged her schedule at all, makes her pulse quicken. And she can’t deny that the thought of going somewhere with him outside of these three safe grey rooms sends a quiet thrill of anticipation sparking through her veins.

 

And not just because she’d give her right arm to breath real, un-recycled air either. But because part of her suddenly really wants to see him outside of this ship. She finds it difficult to reconcile the images, to picture his face bathed in golden sunlight instead of the stark white of the hi-energy bulbs.

 

“Okay.” She nods after a moment’s hesitation, glancing down at their hands. At the long leather clad fingers still wrapped around hers. Standing so close together she can feel the loose strands of hair at her temple stir as he exhales. “So long as it doesn’t interfere with my hours, I would… like... to go with you.”

 

When she finally flicks her gaze back to him he’s looking at her so intensely her breath catches. His black eyes shining brightly under the lights, searching her face like he’s memorizing her. Storing away this moment forever.

 

He reaches up with his free hand, brushing the loose strands from her face. Leaning down slowly, giving her plenty of opportunity to turn away before his lips brush hers.

 

Her breath catches, a half gasp as he kisses her. He always lets her make the first move. Always. This is unknown to her. Almost… tender. It’s not an emotion she ever thought to ascribe to him, her heart beating a bloody tattoo against her ribs at the soft rasp of his mouth against hers. The way his fingers trail the length of her neck before he pulls back. Leaving her breathless, wanting, in his wake.

 

Her head is swimming as he moves away from her, disorientated and almost angry at the sudden loss of contact. His kisses have always been so urgent, powerful and taking. This new expression of affection has robbed her of her thoughts completely, mind already scrabbling to try and unpick its meaning.

 

“Very well.” He looks almost as flushed as she feels, not quite meeting her eye as he moves away. Gesturing for her to return to her task. “I expect you on my ship at nineteen hundred hours.  And it would probably be best to wear something less…” He shoots a lingering glance back at her. Heating her right down to her toes. “easily identifiable.”

 

She rolls her eyes, pulse still thrumming desperately as she tries to shake the feeling off. He walks around in seven layers of black fabric and a mask. He can hardly talk about not being _identifiable_.

 

“Fine.” She coughs, picking up her work bag instead. A quick glance at the chronos telling her it’s nearly time to clock into work. She cannot afford being late again. “I’ll... see you this evening then.”

 

He nods and she’s gone.

 

Trying not to run as she struggles against the strange warmth that’s building in her chest. A delicate, fluttering feeling that beats with razor wings. Cutting into her most vulnerable places. Scaring her most of all because she knows it’s not new. It has been growing there for a long while and she doesn’t think she can hide from it much longer. She can’t keep pretending it’s just desire, just loyalty or care.

 

It is something she doesn’t have the vocabulary for.

 

And it’s coming for her with a vengeance.

 

-

 

She has pushed it down by day’s end, Filing the feeling neatly away in the clean engine of her mind and letting herself be _her_ again. Nervous, irritated her.

 

It takes her far too long to find anything she thinks he might consider _suitable_ attire for this mission. But she can’t help but concede he has a point, she can’t wear her jumpsuit off-ship and expect people not to notice. Not with the big orange ‘Galactech’ patches on the back and sleeve. Not when she’s standing beside the most recognizable figure in the First Order.

 

Kylo Ren tends to make an impression after all.

 

But she still rolls her eyes as she digs about for something to wear. The meager collection of clothing she’s brought with her from Jakku are all patched and sand-worn. And Beige. She’s assuming he’d prefer her in black, which had never exactly been a practical colour on a desert planet.

 

Not that she cares what he prefers of course, but she’d rather avoid an argument with him if necessary. Not when she’s finally getting a chance to stretch her legs outside again. Too taste fresh air.

 

In the end she uses her powers to gently persuaded a laundry tech to give her one of the short-sleeved undershirts the lower ranking officers favour, alongside a pair of leggings the storm troopers wear beneath their armour. Her own work boots will have to do as far as footwear goes.

 

She leaves her off-white arm wraps, a little mark of nonconformity. A stamp of independance.

 

She’s sweating bullets by the time the evening rolls around. Her jumpsuit zipped up to her neck over the ensemble as she heads for the shuttle, trying to breathe through the layers of fabric.

 

It isn’t exactly difficult to sneak on board.

 

All she has to do is keep her gaze fixed in a worried scowl on her data-pad. Another faceless technician scurrying about the place, as inconsequential as any other. As unrecognizable as any of the masked troopers stationed there.

 

Her heart is still racing by the time she makes it up the ramp though, keeping a careful touch on the thoughts of those around her as she darts on board. No matter how easy it might be, if anyone calls her out, checks her credentials, she'll be done for. There's something delicious about the adrenaline racing through her though. Emotions running high off of the fear of being caught.

 

Her pulse slows as she gains access to the empty shuttle, the dim hush of the interior soothing her unsteady heart. He still has yet to tell her what any of this is about. The mystery mission pulling at the back of her mind as she passes through the open airlock and into the ship proper.

 

Part of her is terrified of what it is they’re actually off to do.

 

He doesn’t often talk about his work. She’s had to puzzle together what she can on her own. Trying to find a middle ground from the few things he says and the bloody stories she hears. He’s the First Order’s chief enforcer. He finds and eliminates threats. He is the master interrogator. He is… _something_ , something she doesn’t quite want to think about.

 

And she doesn’t know how to reconcile it all with the man whose face she now knows better than her own. The one who looks at her like she’s more than the _world._

 

R’iia only knows she understands necessary evils. There are memories from her past, of the things she’s done to survive in the desert, she still longs to forget. Fragments she can never quite escape from. Blood in the sand.

 

But this seems different somehow. She did what she had to to stay alive, he is committing atrocities on the whim of a demon.

 

He has never lied to her before though. Not really. If he says this is necessary she will believe him. Right up until the moment she can’t anymore.

 

She hesitates at the top of the ramp, there’s a door in front of her with steps leading up to the cockpit, another to the side. Judging by the size it leads to the crew area, maintenance hatch and - depending on far the aft stretches - transport quarters. She ignores it for now, heading up the stairs instead. She doubts Ren is expecting her to wait in the back like some foreign dignitary anyway.

 

The cockpit is a world of glass and chrome, stunning in it’s simplicity. She momentarily forgets how to breathe as she steps inside. A childlike wave of excitement banishing everything else from her head.

 

Practically flinging her work bag on one of the handful of buttery black leather seats, she rushes to examine the dash. Heart thumping as she un-assembles it with her eyes. She’s flown earlier class shuttles before on her simulator, but nothing as advanced as this.

 

This is a thing of beauty.

 

She runs a hand over the gleaming black and silver controls, passing over the gauges for the sensor suites in the wings, the row of neat triggers for the dual-core jammer system. Not to mention the shield generator system, which would net her at _least_ 200 portions back on Jakku. She bets it handles like a dream, even with the enormous stabilizers. Suddenly impatient for her mentor to show up so she can see it in action already.

 

As if she’s summoned him she hears a familiar heavy step on the ramp below, rushing for the door to greet him and freezing on the steps as a second tread joins his. A dark wave of warning snatching at her mind as she stumbles back into the shadows, pressing herself into the cramped space where the wall meets the doorframe.

 

Her heart thunders in her ears, so loud she’s afraid they will hear as Ren’s irritation rolls over her like the tide.

 

“I’m not allowing anyone off this ship without the full contingent of Troopers.” The voice snaps, icily familiar as she realizes the sharp stucco of footsteps belongs to none other than General Hux. “I will not have the Order looking weak, not now the completion of Starkiller Base so close.”

 

Her heart hitches, adrenaline running rampant through her veins as she presses herself further into the shadows. As hiding places go this is a terrible one, if they move into the ship, edge just a little too far to the left she will be seen. There is no way to return up the stairs without their notice either. She’s stuck. If she stumbles now she will be found, then there will be no choice but to reveal the truth.

 

She is a third-class technician on a first priority vessel without orders. It’s an instant termination. Never mind whatever military punishment they’d see fit to bestow on her.

 

Ren’s anger spikes and she finds she has to press a hand to her mouth to keep from gasping. Her temper fraying along with his with each passing second.

 

“You have no authority over my affairs, General.” The metal grate of the mask does nothing to disguise the contempt in his voice. “I am not one of your lackeys to be ordered around. Leave.”

 

There’s a terse moment of silence, the tension rising until she’s practically choking on it. The weight of what might happen next crushing her.

 

Then she hears the sharp clack of boots against metal again. “I’ll be taking this up with the Supreme Leader.” Hux spits.

 

“If you wish to trouble him with such trivialities.” He is icily calm as he says it, “Be my guest.”

 

Hux says something too low for her to hear as he walks away.

 

She doesn’t let herself breathe again until she can hear the whirr of the ramp rising and feel Ren’s shields drop.

 

“You can come out now.” He says, anger still radiating through the metallic growl of the mask.

 

“Well, isn’t he a regular breath of fresh air.” She mutters darkly, rubbing her hand across the back of her neck as if she might wipe the second hand irritation away with it. She’s really starting to hate Hux, the memory of the time he berated her in the hallway still fresh in her mind.

 

“I thought I made myself clear about your attire.” He says in a clipped tone as she follows him up the stairs.

 

She frowns in confusion, scowling at his back before glancing down at her uniform in realization.

 

“Oh right.” She pauses at the threshold of the cockpit as he seats himself in the pilot’s chair, stamping down the sharp jab of disappointment that she won’t get to handle the controls herself. Firming her shields, she struggles to reassert her own emotions. Freeing herself of the jumpsuit at last, she balls it up and stuffs it into the bag. “I _needed_ the uniform to get in here,” She adds ever so slightly sarcastically, breathing easier already now she’s free from the poly-blend. “People tend to notice you if you’re not wearing one around here.”

 

“Hmm.” He turns his head just long enough to take in her less than fashionable ensemble. A small nod of approval is all she gets however before he’s setting the course and flicking on the ignition sequence.

 

“Speaking of-” She raises her eyebrows at the mask as she drops into the co-pilot chair beside him. The Upsilion-class doesn’t require a co-pilot, it barely needs a pilot at all. One glance at the auto-nav could tell her that, it’s the most advanced bit of navigation tech she’d seen. But she sits there anywhere, hands reaching automatically to brush the edge of the dash.

 

She feels a thin thread of surprise at her words, as if he’d forgotten he was wearing it again. Frustration thrumming beneath his facade. But he reaches up all the same, disengaging the mechanism and tossing it back into the seat behind them with her bag.

 

“Better.” She flicks him a taunting smile. “Far less _noticeable_.”

 

He narrows his eyes but she can see the wry twist at the corner of his full lips. Her breath catches at it, suddenly flashing back to the strange, tender moment from that morning. She pushes it down, wrapping her composure around her like a cape as she watches him work. Fingers dancing over the controls as he fires up the repulsors and takes them out of the hangar. The autopilot locking in as soon as they pass the barrier into the vastness of space.

 

“Did you have to set the fuel sensors before dropping into the auto-nav? The drivers jammed if you didn’t in the Sigma.” She asks before she can stop herself.

 

It’s so smooth she can barely believe it, a far cry from the problems the old model had during take off. The giddy rush of flight rekindling as she leans forward, reaching for the data screen. The only thing that could have improved it is if she were the one at the controls.

 

“No.” His brow furrows as he pulls back from the controls, apparently content to let the AI have it’s head as he regards her. She blushes as she realizes she’s still bent double over the dash, examining the speed gauges. “You’ve flown a command shuttle before?”

 

“Yes.” She answers automatically before biting her tongue, eyes flicking away as she corrects herself. “Well… no. Not technically. I’ve run the simulations though. Every kind of ship. Command shuttles, freighters, fighters, cruisers. I’ve flown them all.”

 

She beams at the memory, eyes lingering over the control screen. Suddenly breathless as the console beeps, the ship reaching its boundary point and jumping into hyper speed.

 

“You wanted to be a pilot.” She has noticed he never quite asks things as questions. It’s more of an assumption he throws out for confirmation, feeling the heavy weight of his gaze on her as she glances back with a shrug. Taking her hands away from the dash at last, she folds them in her lap to stop herself from giving into the urge to re-set all the flight settings for maximum fuel efficiency.

 

“As a child, I guess. I always wanted to be a fighter pilot for the...” Her face colours as the words slip out without her permission, flicking her gaze away when he fixes her with a look that makes it clear she should continue. “Rebellion.”

 

“The _Rebellion_.” He snorts, somehow managing to fit a whole galaxy’s worth of contempt into one little word. At least he’s not angry she supposes, although the dismissal in his voice gets her hackles right up. She turns a glare on him, only to find he’s shaking his head at her. Eyebrows hooked as he looks at her in almost… amusement. “How did you end up here.”

 

She’s not sure if it’s really a question or a judgement but she answers anyway.

 

“Oh you know,” Another shrug, forcing herself to be as casual as possible as she skirts around the circumstances of her past. “Had to get work somewhere, plus the First Order has a pretty stellar health plan.”

 

He considers her closely and she can feel her heart beginning to thunder again under the full weight of his attention. Like he can see everything she’s trying to hide. Her thin attempt at humour swept aside as his mind brushes over her, warm and familiar now.

 

“But you still don’t believe in our cause.” He murmurs, his sudden disappointment in her palpable. She clenches her hands into fists, putting the sudden sharp throb in her chest down as anger. “Not truly. Not even after all this time.”

 

She feels her face heat. There’s no sense in lying to him now though, she has no loyalty to the Order. She still can’t quite figure out what it even is they stand for. Their pretty speeches about the quest for a unified galaxy offset by the weaponry they conceal. The plans she’s seen for the planet-sized ‘deterrent’ they’re building to help tame the cosmos. They prize conformity, obedience. She craves excitement, freedom.

 

She was not made for mindless submission.

 

Ren should know that better than anyone.

 

An odd thought has started to grow in her the longer she spends in the cold durasteel hush of the Finalizer though, a half-whisper at the back of her mind that wonders if maybe he’s just as trapped by them as she is.

 

“No.” She says at last, head held high. Stubborn to the last. “I suppose not. But then, I’m not the First Order’s apprentice. I’m yours.”

 

He sucks in a sharp breath, turning abruptly to look at her.

 

They are silent for a long moment as she stares resolutely into him. Willing him to understand that her loyalty is to him and him alone. That Snoke and Hux and everyone else don’t even come into it for her. They are not what she signed up for and she will not let them wield any power over her other than that they already have as part of her contract on the ship.

 

She watches the muscle in his jaw jump as he swallows hard, the stars dancing across his eyes as he nods once.

 

“Perhaps when all this is done,” He says, something strange in his voice. Distant, hopeful. “I will show you rest of the Galaxy. Show the reach of the First Order, the chaos of the worlds it hasn't touched yet. Perhaps your opinion will change then.”

 

She nods tightly. She can’t deny the appeal of it, First Order or not. The chance of seeing all the things she's ever dreamed of with him by her side is temptation itself.

 

“Perhaps.”

  



	21. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes it's harder to commune with the living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *waves* Hey gang - my usual massive, shiny thank you to everyone still here! I honestly didn't think anyone'd stick around this long so the fact that there are still people left reading and commenting means the entire freaking world to me <3 Your kind words really do keep me writing!
> 
> Rellathy. Thank you for not letting me jump out of that window over this chapter. My unbroken bones appreciate it ;-)

 

He know’s this is a risk.

 

But it’s an unavoidable one.

 

An inevitable step in her training, a necessary progression of her apprenticeship. Time seems to have passed them in a blur and, before he could blink, suddenly there is barely a month left on her contract. A month to show her where she truly belongs.

 

Her powers are growing daily, stronger and surer with every lesson. But if he doesn’t expose her to the realities of the outside world soon he fears she will become too complacent. That the darkness he has been nurturing within her will never fully bloom.

 

He wonders if he would have waited this long, been this gentle, this _coaxing_ , with any other student. But it’s an idle thought. There could never have been another student. There is only _her._ And if he has waited, guarded her power and kept her shielded for longer than he should, then perhaps it is understandable. If not forgiveable.

 

Now though, he will make it right.

 

Ease her into the true responsibilities that come with power like theirs.

 

This mission is a minor one. A small lead he is only chasing due to proximity. His Knights are half way across the cosmos and he will not wait for their return. Not now he is so close to fulfilling his destiny.

 

The blue-green planet swells in size in the viewport. Neither of them making any attempt to fill the silence of the shuttle with needless chatter or prying questions. She’s apparently as content to sit back and watch the surface approach as he is to watch her. His traitorous heart still thundering from her admission.

 

She is _his_.

 

Not the Supreme Leader’s. Not the First Order’s.

 

Her loyalty has been lain directly at his feet, her trust placed solely in his care.

 

His and his alone.

 

No one has ever spoken to him the way she does.

 

Not the bitter memories of the other boy’s parents. The ones whose words always rang with fear, displeasure or distraction, no matter how much they tried to hide it. Or his uncle, who spoke with patronizing disapproval. Not even Master Snoke, who has whispered in his head since his infancy. No, Snoke’s voice is careful, caressing. It builds him up and breaks him down in turn, saying what is necessary. A dark guide that always keeps his powers in focus and his ambitions in check.

 

Her affection isn’t like that.

 

When she tells him she’s his it’s with fire in her eyes and irritation rolling from her shoulders. The words sun-bright and jagged. Saying it like she’d fight anyone who offended him, like she might fight him too if he ever offended her.

 

It’s raw and clumsy and it makes his head spin.

 

He wonders now if this was his best decision. If the chance he is taking by bringing her with him into the outside world like this isn’t too great. Too hasty.

 

He pushes it aside, watching her draw her lip between her teeth instead. Chewing on it distractedly as her gaze darts down to the settings. She checks the gauges, endlessly fascinated by the ship.

 

It’s not something he understands, her child-like enthusiasm for flying. Any sort of travel is a tedious necessity, one that’s far preferably spent with someone else at the controls so he can focus on more important things.

 

But she’s looking at the dash like it’s the most incredible thing she’s ever seen.

 

No. He has never wanted to be a pilot. Not in the lifetime of Kylo Ren at least, and not just because every time he’s forced to take the controls he risks the ghosts’ return.

 

_“Hey, make sure the accelerators are in check - good, now punch it Ben!”_

 

His face pales as the voice echoes from the darkest corner of his mind, lancing him right through. He has summoned them with his carelessness, the locks on his past weakened by the fight with Hux. Weakened further by this new fear in his chest. The sudden fire of her trust has burnt him, threatening to undo his composure completely.

 

The voice overtakes it all, a paralyzing terror gripping him. A seething, swallowing darkness that could only be inspired by a man who cared more about starships than for his own flesh and blood.

 

_“Hey kid, wanna see how fast we can go?”_

 

He grits his teeth so hard his jaw seizes. Turning his head when her gaze rises up to him. The ghosts linger on, invisible but everywhere as he pushes against them. He forces his shields up, keeping the panic from her notice as she turns her gaze away again. Watching the ground rushing up to meet them as they break the atmosphere.

 

For all of her darkness she is still so much a creature of the light, a fact made so much clearer by the way the sunlight gilds her. They might have left during the evening hours on the ship but the sun is still high in the sky as they descend onto Kegan. Wings folding up as they land in a clearing in a mountain pass, thousands of miles from the only city on the planet.

 

Her eyes are almost glowing as she takes it in, her focus pulled from him completely as she stares out over this new world. He can hear the ragged sound of her breath, feel the far-off throb of her wonder as the ship settles.

 

“I didn’t know there was this much green in the galaxy.” She breathes, almost to herself. A quiet sort of awe coloring her voice.

 

He swallows hard.

 

A memory of her past returns to him, of the fragments he had seen the first time they met. An endless world of sand and heat. His heart stalls, a hard pulse of anger at her life before. More determined than ever to show her the universe. To lay ocean planets and frozen wastelands at her feet. Forests and jungles and cities. Everything the cosmos has to offer, he will show her it all.

 

First though, they must get through this.

 

The sudden shaking of his composure. The voices threatening to drag him back, to force him into the shell of that dead boy. Splintering his control, leaving him unbalanced on the edge of his mind, as if - with one wrong move - it might all come rushing back in. The blinding, burning lightness that threatens to sear away the protective embrace ofthe dark.

 

He can control it though, force it down and drown it in his darkness. If only he maintains his focus.

 

He hands her one of his cowls wordlessly, a spare pulled from storage before the mission. The scarf swamps her shoulders as she pulls up the hood, her mouth twitching as she has to fold it back to see. It is an unnecessary precaution, perhaps. He isn’t expecting them to have much in the way of company.

 

But he finds he can’t smile back as she snaps her lightsaber to the work-belt she’s rigged to hold it and beams up at him. He's too consumed with caging up his fears as they head for the airlock, waiting until they’re at the top of the ramp before replacing his mask. She doesn’t like it, he knows, but it is necessary in this case. And he won't deny it's a relief to put it back on too. A way of shielding his surging emotions from the world.

 

The face he shows to her is not the face the galaxy knows. Out here he is not a person, but a symbol. A scion of the First Order, an embodiment of his legacy.

 

His humanity is weakness enough already.

 

“What are we doing here?” She asks as he draws her into the forest, eyes drifting to the colour that springs up from the ground around them. Her hands reaching instinctively for every branch and flower, face lit with child-like wonder as she toys with them. Inhaling every new scent with an almost voracious glee.

 

“I am tasked with retrieving something of importance to the Order.” He says tightly, eyes flicking into the distance as he senses out their path. Catching hold of the consciousness he seeks and leading them towards it. Pulling her away from her distractions, through the foliage. Foliage that now looks too much like the towering trees of Endor.

 

Another buried memory of the other boy’s childhood rising sharply behind his eyes. Threatening to engulf him.

 

 _“Don’t wander off, Ben,”_ A softer voice calls, infinitely more painful than the first. _“We’ll be late to meet your uncle.”_

 

He wishes they were back on the ship already, back in the safety of his quarters. The ghosts can no longer find him there, not when she’s with him. The Finalizer is a world strictly in the domain of Kylo Ren.

 

Out here he is an easy target, the discarded memories he’s repressed for a decade returning with a vengeance.

 

“Okay - so _‘something of importance_ .’” Rey startles him from his thoughts, snatching his attention back from the past as she turns her gaze to the empty world around them. Her eyes widening in surprise. “And it’s _here?”_

 

“No. But there is a lead here.” He nods in the direction they’re travelling. Trying to steady his pace, she can’t keep up otherwise and he doesn’t want to lose her in the tangled undergrowth. Or betray his weakness. “An enemy of the Order who has information we require.”

 

A hazy memory of a group of zealots rises. They seemed old even then, now they must be ancient. The members of the same foolish ‘ _church’_ as the one purported to hold the map he seeks. Worshippers of false ideals and weak magic.

 

The only true power lies in the darkness.

 

“Oh.” She nods. He can see the worry in her eyes, feel the hazy touch of her concern brushing against his mind.

 

He fights the urge to snatch her up, haul her away from this place. Spill his every shameful weakness to her in the hopes she can offer him some sort of absolution. Praying her touch will soothe away his demons and let him breathe easier again.

 

But he doesn’t.

 

He seals his shields against her instead. Unable to afford being swayed by her emotions now, or his own.

 

Not when his legacy is at stake.

 

All the carefully scripted plans he has prepared are being drowned out completely by the horrors his mind has summoned up for him. This is not how he planned today. The slow, careful build up he had imagined. Easing her into the process as he extracted the information he needs with a subtle hand. The darkness inside him has grown far too out of control for that. Fuelled by half-buried memories and the sudden leaping fear he might fail her.

 

As he failed so many others.

 

When he sees their destination through the trees he can barely control the rising tide inside of him, feeding it into his darkness with every step. His stride eating up the earth until he’s pushed every emotion down. Sealing up the last of his humanity beneath the mask.

 

Faceless, ready.

 

“What is to come next is necessary.” He says as they reach the break in the trees, no trace of compassion left in him. “And it will only be unpleasant if he makes it so. Stay out of the way.”

 

He doesn’t wait for her response.

 

-

 

There's a hovel in front of them, it might once have been a small ship. The metal sides rusted and rotted, covered in green with trees growing up through it. Nature reclaiming its own. Much like the way the sands of Jakku had reclaimed the fallen star ships. It unsettles her.

 

She doesn't have time to stop and think about it, or pay too much attention to the man in front of it before Ren's moving. She has felt his darkness rising as the sun moved in the sky, trying to push through her own distracted anxiety to understand it. Scrabbling to catch hold of his mind without success as she watched the slow erosion of his familiarity, like metal worn by sand.

 

She barely recognizes the masked figure in front of her now.

 

All the elation she’d felt at being at last surrounded by so much green wrenched away at this sudden shift.

 

He’s already a shadow in the distance, striding up the rocky path as he fastens his powers around the hermit. Saying something too low to hear as she falters in the treeline, almost as frozen as the man they’ve apparently come to speak too.

 

Her breath catches at the sight.

 

He’s so... _old_. Face creased with age and hard living, all ragged clothes and bones. He reminds her of the villagers of Tuanul. He has the same wretched, fervent look to him. She can’t understand how this bent old thing could be an enemy.

 

Could be enough of a threat to warrant this.

 

Whatever answer this stranger has given has obviously not satisfied Ren. The old man jerks back, spine wrenching painfully as the power tightens around him. It rolls over her in a dark wave, insidious and sickening.

 

Trapping her tongue between her teeth she forges forward, determination set in the straight line of her back. Lurking on the edge of the confrontation as she gets her bearings. This is not the trip she was expecting.

 

“I don’t know where he is, I swear.” The man stutters, his vague Corescenti accent almost unrecognizable with fear. The words settle in her head but she feels something waver behind them, an uncertain pulse of fear.

 

He’s _lying_.

 

And if _she_ knows it...

 

She jerks her gaze to Ren fast enough that her neck cracks, watching as his hand tightens beside the man’s weathered face. The metallic hiss of his breath puncturing the silence like a knife.

 

“You’re lying.” He whispers. Sounding almost... _pleased._

 

She flinches, feeling the power rolling off him double as he drives it into the other man’s mind. Making her head throb as it spills out into her, her ears ringing with the man’s sudden sharp scream of pain. She forgets her instructions, forgets that she is supposed to stand silent and watch.

 

She grabs at Ren’s arm without thought. Whatever his reasoning this is _wrong_ , nothing can be important enough for this. She can feel it in her bones.

 

“Stop.” She fixes her hand around the course fabric of his sleeve, trying to pull him away.

 

He casts her off with one sweep of his arm. Like she's nothing. The sharp weight of his displeasure splitting her shields. She glares at his back, breathing hard against the suffocating weight of his power in the air. Feeling her own rise in response. Confusion vying for space against the anger inside of her.

 

“It is necessary.” He growls at her, the mask making the words monstrous, spoken to the frozen man instead of her. Dismissing her without a single glance.

 

“It is _not_ .” She reaches for him again only to find her feet anchored in place. The anger really rises then, pulling and pushing at his power as he goes back to the interrogation as if she hadn’t spoken at all. Humiliation burning her at being sidelined like this, brushed aside entirely. “ _Ren._ ”

 

Something about his name stops him, whipping around to look at her at last. The mask tilting as he considers her coolly. She can feel her heart thundering in her chest, a desperate painful rhythm, as they regard each other in silence. For the first time in a long time she’s scared of him, truly, deeply scared of him. The realization fuelling a new sort of panic in her. She can’t figure out _why_ he’s doing this, if he wants information this is not the way to get it. It’s too messy, hurting this pitiful man for no reason.

 

She can’t reconcile this shadowed creature with the man she cares for.

 

“You think you can do better.” He says, his voice calm. Mocking her.

 

She snaps her mouth shut, she had meant to shield herself better than that but the sudden rush of adrenaline has her defenses wavering.

 

“Very well.” The power around her legs breaks and she’s stumbling forward before she can catch her balance.

 

He stalks towards her, focused and menacing. Fixing her with the full weight of his attention, the man, the situation, she forgets all of it under his gaze. He reaches to take the curve of her chin in his fingers, tilting it up toward him. A lingering possessive gesture that makes her shudder. A dark imitation of a lover’s caress.

 

She can’t look away.

 

“You may try, my apprentice.”

 


	22. Lesser Evil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some occasions cannot be risen to. They must be sunk to instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *waves* Hey everyone! Sorry chapters are still a little all over the place posting wise ^^; I really hope you enjoy this anyway! <3
> 
> Lemon Rello. BABE! THANKS! (See - I told you I'd thank you on all of my accounts today ;-))

 

 

  


Her skin is burning with his touch.

 

Horror clouding her thoughts even as her heart races at the familiar contact, a sick reflection of what she’s come to crave from him. She remembers the first time he touched her, the way he carefully pulled the scarf from her face in the grey conference room a lifetime before.

 

He is even more of a stranger now, in this moment, than he was then.

 

He steps away at last, gesturing her forward with a flourish. The old man is waiting, frozen in terror as he watches their interaction with wide, shining eyes. She can taste his fear, it drowns out the fresh forest air. Bitter and cloying.

 

She takes a hesitant step towards him, then another. There is no part of her that wants to do this, her mind whirring as she tries to square this act away with her wavering conscience.

 

 _This is the best option, s_ he tells herself it over and over again with each ragged breath. Even as her stomach churns at the thought. She is the lesser evil. If she’s the one doing this, the one violating this strangers mind, she can make it brief at least. Spare him any unnecessary pain Ren might cause.

 

 _Lord Ren,_ she corrects herself _._

 

She won’t allow any familiarity between them. Not now.

 

Decision made she straightens her spine and pushes past the black figure of her mentor. Refusing to shy away now, to give him the bitter satisfaction of her weakness. She swallows down the fear, letting her darkness rise instead. The comforting weight of anger cloaking her, keeping her from crumbling beneath his gaze.

 

She will not succumb to it like he has though, she won't let it make her a monster. No, she will fuel it into strength, let it bolster her power. She glares into the middle distance as he shadows her steps. He does not _deserve_ her attention now.

 

Instead she focuses her gaze on the stranger in front of her, the one looking at her with horror.

 

With desperate, faltering _hope._

 

“Please,” She lowers her voice, cutting Lord Ren from the conversation as she implores the old man with her eyes. Trying to corral the unwieldy panic of her power into something useable, pushing it into her words. “Just tell him what he wants to know and we’ll go.”

 

The compulsion settles behind his eyes, and for a split second her heart leaps. Then it’s gone. Fizzling into nothing as he stares at her. She reaches out with her mind, brushing along the old man’s shields. Shields far thicker than they had any right to be. A solid, protective barrier around his memories, rough but sturdy. Like Veshok wood. She tastes bile when her power brushes across the gouges her mentor has already left there, crude wounds not deep enough to puncture. Ugly and throbbing beneath her notice, spilling pain like sap.

 

She can feel the sweat beading on the back of her neck beneath the hood, serious intent set in every line of her face as she stops herself from looking back. From acknowledging the spectre at her shoulder. Even as the leaden weight of his disapproval crushes her.

 

He is waiting for her to fail.

 

“Please, tell us.” She repeats, pushing her power forward again. Strength and warmth intertwining in her voice as she demands the truth.

 

“I told him - I- I-” The man stutters and her heart sinks, “I don’t know-”

Something dark throbs in her, sudden and striking.

 

Part of her _hates_ this man. Hates him for lying so obviously when it would be so easy to tell the truth, to spare all three of them the unnecessary pain of this interaction. She squeezes her eyes shut and hears his breath hitch as she reaches for his mind instead. If the compulsion won’t work she has no choice, she must find the answers for herself.

 

They’re looking for someone, an enemy, who has something of importance to the First Order. It isn’t the best start to go from but she’ll be damned if she’ll ask the man behind her for more information now. No, she must trust that she’ll know it when she finds it.

 

Her eyes flutter shut as she raises her hand to his head, slipping beneath the surface of his mind again. As gently as she can. Searching for any entrance to his thoughts she might exploit. Pressing her power into the wounds Lord Ren has left, she carefully begins to drive her way in, flinching at the way the man gasps. The way he begs her not to. Begs her to let him go.

 

She struggles against herself as she pushes through his shields. Seeing his thoughts like a reflection on a broken mirror, jagged fragments of memories that make no sense on their own.

 

She hears voices she doesn’t know. Smells and tastes and feels things that aren’t hers to feel. A voyeur in this man’s most private moments. Births and deaths and heartbreak. And yet she can tell none of it is what she seeks. Letting the thoughts wash over her as she presses deeper.

 

The closer she gets the more incomprehensible the memories become. Short, sharp flashes she can’t catch hold onto.

 

Hooded figures in a circle. A city in flames. A stranger wielding a green lightsaber. The starry sky. Old men and young men. A woman who looks strangely familiar to her carrying a child. Forests and fighting and -

 

She can hear herself gasping against the sound of his pleas. Guilt driving her heart like an engine as she drowns in his fractured mind. Feeling his pain pulsing through her body as she digs. She’s close, she can tell. Feeling her way to where the shield lies thickest. A white glow of fear surrounding it like a beacon.

 

A heady pulse of victory rushes through her, a warm wash of adrenaline that makes her head spin at how close she is. How _strong_ she is.

 

“Fi-Fine!” He gasps as she stretches towards it, sweat blinding her as she struggles to breathe. “I’ll tell you.”

 

She draws back, swallowing down air as she lets her power still. Not pulling out, not yet. Too busy clawing her senses back to her. Reminding herself how wrong this is. Then she sees the tear tracks in the dust on his face and remembers.

 

She doubts she’ll ever be able to completely scrub the image from her eyes.

 

“He - He went west... the Western Reaches, I don’t know where- he didn’t say I swear it.”

 

His words are truthful now.

 

Part of her wants to dig deeper anyway. To rip open the memories he’s guarding so carefully and discover exactly who it is he’s protecting. What it is that’s so vital she has been forced into this. Feeling her power roar in response, wanting to prove her skill. Her _worth._

 

She kills the thought. Sickened at herself for it. Disgusted she could even contemplate hurting him further now, when she’d already done so much. Whatever it is Lord Ren is looking for, whatever it is this man, Eyon Jal she now knows his name is, is protecting it doesn’t matter.

 

 _Nothing_ could be this important. So what difference does it make if she knows it or not?

 

She has done the unforgivable and she won’t disgrace herself further by trying to justify it.

 

She gathers the tattered remains of her powers around her and brushes shaking fingers to his weathered cheeks. Swallowing hard as he flinches from her touch.

 

“You will forget this,” She says, summoning up all the warmth left in her soul and pushing it into his aching mind. The compulsion sticks easily now, he is too weak to resist her. Her power soothing the ragged edges she has torn in her search, washing away the memory of them completely. “You will forget ever meeting us. You fell asleep in your garden, that’s all.”

 

He nods, milky eyed and far away. Looking so thankful she can actually feel the bile rise in the back of her throat.

 

A twist of her power is all it takes to knock him out, lowering him gently to the floor. She leaves him there, a broken rag doll at her feet.

 

Angry, hateful tears sting her eyes as she turns sharply on her heel. Not letting herself stop, not letting herself breathe, as she strides right past her mentor. Diving back into the forest.

 

Branches tear at her. Catching at skin and cloth unnoticed as she fights her way through the trees. Greenery blurring in front of her as she tries to lose herself in it. Tries to escape herself.

 

“ _Apprentice_.”

 

His voice cracks through her, his power settling over her like a shroud as he follows her into the forest. His anger and pride and a hundred things she doesn’t want to acknowledge pounding in her head.

 

She despises herself for what she’s done, but she hates him more. Hates him because a part of her _liked_ it

 

And it’s _his fault._ He has made her do this, tricked her into crossing another boundary she wasn't ready to cross. He's _evil._ Heartless. Soulless.

 

He’s… He’s...

 

Right behind her.

 

She feels him reaching out for her and smacks back his power. Determined to keep running until she can think again. Until she’s free of his eyes, free of her own thoughts. Some place quiet she can bury this emotion, stuff it down and tame it until they’re back on the Finalizer.

 

Until she can disappear down into the belly of the ship, wrap herself in the anonymity of the Technician’s world. Willing to do whatever it will take now to force herself back into being the girl she was before.

 

The girl who might have done terrible things to survive; terrible, _necessary_ things. But who would never do _this._

 

“ _Rey_.” His anger is turning into something desperate. Almost a plea. Cracks forming in his careful facade as the power washes over her like the desert sands. It tastes metallic, like fear.

 

Like panic.

 

She runs from it. Funnelling every scrap of energy she has left into her legs, leaving him behind as she tears through the trees.

 

Her heart thunders in her ears. The darkness rising inside of her making a stark contrast to the glory around her. She can smell the lush damp loom, hear the rustling of leaves over the sound of her ragged breathing. Everything she’s ever dreamed of turned into a nightmare.

 

She risks a glance back as she slows, lungs burning. For a moment the forest is still, a peaceful world of green with her at the centre. Finally alone.

 

And then he breaks from the trees behind her, reaching for her with one outstretched hand.

 

The image is so familiar, so striking, she stumbles. Almost falling as her mind struggles to comprehend the sudden feeling. Stronger even than deja-vu. He reaches out to steady her but she dodges his touch, reaching up instead to slam her fists into his chest.

 

Vicious and vengeful as she catches him off guard for once.

 

“Was it worth it?” She spits, staring fire into his hateful black mask. “Was it enough to justify you doing that? Making _me_ do that?” She tries to steady herself, tries to reign in her fury but she can’t. “To a - a _nobody_?”

 

For that’s what Eyon Jal was, she learnt that from his stolen memories. All the fragments she’d guiltily pawed through. He was a bystander of history, nothing more. And she’d ripped his mind apart for a pitiful _scrap_ of information.

 

She moves to pull away but he’s too fast, fingers cinching around her wrists. Trapping them both in one large hand and holding her there.

 

“Not a nobody.” He growls. She can feel his eyes boring into her through the glass of his visor. “And yes. The ends _more_ than justify the means.”

 

“Don’t - Don’t touch me.” She tries to pull away again, sneering at him even as she struggles against his hold. “I don’t believe you.”

 

His grip tightens, hard enough to bruise as he drags her closer. Holding her flush against the fine black wool of his surcoat.

 

“You don’t understand.” The words are short, the condescension in them making her shake with fury. She has been made a disobedient child under his tongue once more and it _burns_ her. “That information is of vital importance.”

 

“Importance?” She barks it out in a laugh. Bitter and humourless. Hating the traitorous way her body responds to him, the automatic warmth that floods her at his nearness. Mixing with her adrenaline until she can barely think. “We nearly brain damaged a man for _nothing_ . What could be so important? _Who’s in the Western Reaches?_ ”

 

He is still for one long, painful second. Then he releases her. Practically flinging her wrists away as he turns from her.

 

“Not who.” He says, his shoulders slumping as if someone’s cut his strings. “ _What._ ”

 

She rubs the feeling back into her arms, backing away from his retreating form automatically. Watching warily as he reaches up to unlatch his mask, drawing it off at last and tucking it beneath his arm. When he turns to look at her it’s with red rimmed eyes, so full of feeling she can barely stand it.

 

Fear, rage, guilt... sadness.

 

_Unbearable sadness._

 

He looks so familiar now, so much like the man she cares for she almost steps towards him.   _Almost._ She forces her feet in place. He may look like her mentor but he is a stranger still, and he has made her do the unthinkable. She gathers her fury around her, focusing on the fire of it as she stares at him from across the clearing.

 

“Well?” She bites out between clenched teeth, legs trembling as she fights the urge to run from him. To him. Her head pounding with his feelings. “ _What_ then? What was so important. _What could be worth this?_ ”

 

She feels the anger in him rise again, sees it in the way he narrows his eyes at her. Stumbling backwards as he advances on her.

 

“There’s a navigational chart.” His words are clipped, frustration evident in every line of his body as they circle each other. Testing their boundaries with each careful step.

 

“Navigational… _A star map?”_ She can hear the disbelief in her voice as she realizes what it is he’s looking for. The sheer derision. “You’re doing this for a fucking _star map_?”

 

“Not just a star map.” He growls, the answering flare of his rage immediate and heady. Stepping toward her with his long stride and forcing her to continue to retreat. To back away from the intensity of his ire, even as she struggles to maintain her own anger against the sudden flickering uncertainty in her. “One that leads to my only chance at fulfilling my destiny. My _one_ chance to avenge my family.” His hand tightens around her arm as he catches up to her. She swallows hard, rough bark biting into her as he backs her into a tree. Out of options. Out of choices. For a second she thinks about reaching for her lightsaber but it’s fleeting. Her world narrowing down to the spectrum of his eyes as he stares into her, willing her to understand. “It’s my only hope of getting justice against the man who _murdered_ my grandfather.”

 

She freezes.

 

The vehemence of his words settling deep into the marrow of her bones. The truth revealed at last.

 

“Luke Skywalker.” She almost can’t believe she said it, now skewered by the full heat of his gaze. Breath quickening at the way his grip on her upper arm has become a caress, fingers trailing across the bare skin there almost wonderingly.

 

After their last conversation about his family she had dropped a few hints around Jay, picked up a new story or two about the old Empire’s chief enforcer. They said Vader was killed by a Jedi Knight. A man whose name she had even heard on Jakku.

 

A legendary figure whose presence she had always chalked up to mythology.

 

Ren nods sharply. Mouth set in a grim line.

 

“I didn’t think he was real.” It’s a stupid admission, searching his eyes for the truth as he towers over her.

 

“He is.” Ren breathes, fingers smoothing down her arm. Brushing against her aching wrists. A hesitant, apologetic touch before he turns away from her. Stepping back so suddenly she is left reeling, _cold_ , in his wake. “Real and dangerous. It’s my legacy to finish this. To avenge my Grandfather and complete his life's work.” He stills, back to her. She watches his hands clench into fists, muscles shaking with tension. “I will do _whatever_ it takes to finish it.”

 

The hatred she feels beneath the surface of his mind steals her breath. A wrenching, blinding fear that sinks right down to her soul. _This_ she can understand.

 

Understand all too well.

 

It’s so familiar, so _human_ she can’t help but follow him as he paces away from her.

  


“What about you?” She asks. The words too loud in the still forest, reckless and angry. She reaches out, turning him with a touch and fixing him with the full force of her stubborn gaze.

 

“Me?” A muscle in his jaw twitches as he looks down at her in confusion. Wary and angry and beautiful in the dying sunlight.

 

“What about _your_ destiny?” She glares at him, wondering if she’s lost her mind completely for still going after him like this. For believing there might be hope for them yet. “You are more than just the blood of Darth Vader.”

 

For a moment he is so still she wonders if she has gone too far. Said too much.

 

There’s a dull thud as the mask falls to the forest floor. Landing unheeded in the dirt as he catches her face between his hands, cradling it so carefully it makes her heart ache. Touching her like she’s something sacred.

 

She reaches up, hesitant and clumsy as she covers his hand with hers. His touch burning her even through the soft leather of his gloves. He has been made human again, no longer the greater evil. No longer the closed-off creature darkness from every horror story she had been told of him.

 

She _knows_ this man.

 

He is unguarded now, his power spilling over her with childlike desperation as he pleads with dark eyes.

 

“Rey... Stay with me.”

 


	23. Reactions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For every action...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my, oh gosh, oh my stars and garters! Look away children, look away! The smuttening gets a threequel! *covers eyes and flees into the night*
> 
> Rellcardo. Thanks for everything you beautiful filthy angel you! <3

  


He’s gone too far.

 

He’s certain of it.

 

Once more pushing too hard, too fast and risking losing her completely. Chasing her through the tangle of this hellishly green planet under a fading sun, using up his last chances by the handful.

 

She doesn’t _understand._ Unable to truly comprehend the situation, the painful, complex reality he lives in. She is still too naive. Too blinded by her own narrow worldview to see how much this really matters. How _necessary_ the things they have done are.

 

The things she has naturally _excelled_ at.

 

He can still feel the heady beat of elation beneath his fear, his guilt. Taste the sweetness of victory as he replays the moment behind his eyes, feeling her powers flexing and growing by the second as she pulled forth the information they needed.

 

_Glorious._

 

A stark contrast to the way she’s glaring at him now.

 

It’s pitiful the way she can change him with a look. Drag words from him he’d always meant to keep inside. One furious glance and he’s spilling it all, telling her the truth about his purpose, his life’s work.

 

Something changes in her eyes. A bright spark behind the stubborn, furious glare she levels at him. A flicker of understanding. His heart leaps pitifully.

 

Then her gaze narrows again.

 

“What about you?”

 

“Me?” He jerks back, off-balance at her sudden shift of focus. Reeling from the way he can feel her anger in his head, the heavy pulse becoming something softer. Intense but unfocused as her emotions intertwine with his own, as her hand catches at his sleeve.

 

“What about _your_ destiny?” Her slender fingers clench into fists. Staring into him like she can see everything _._ Like she understands _everything._ “You are more than just the blood of Darth Vader.”

 

He feels the air being sucked from his lungs in a rush. Like he’s been pushed out of the airlock into the cold reaches of space.

 

Freefalling in place.

 

_It’s a lie._

 

It _has_ to be.

 

The only power in him comes from his blood, the only strength from his legacy. He has known this for so long that when she looks at him, touches his arm and tells him he is more than that... he almost can’t make sense of the words.

 

He has been bound by names for longer than she has been alive.

 

And she doesn’t seem to care about any of them.

 

He wonders if it’s because she has no names of her own, no past, no blood. If that’s why she so summarily dismisses his. How she can see beyond them, to a person he isn’t sure even exists anymore. Has _ever_ existed. The nameless entity that is only… _him_.

 

He feels his heart clench so tightly that for a moment he thinks she’s done something to him. Seized him in her powers and stopped it entirely, that this is all an elaborate ruse to destroy him. But then it beats again, a sudden painful thud, and the only thing he knows, _knows,_ right down to the core of being is that she can’t leave him now.

 

He wouldn’t survive it.

 

Almost without meaning too he reaches out, tracing his fingers along the smooth curve of her jaw. Proving that she’s real, she’s here.

 

She’s _his._

 

“Rey…” There’s so much he would say to her. His reasons, his secrets. So many things he would lay bare before her but none of them make it past his teeth. Instead he hears himself, broken and begging. “Stay with me.”

 

He's a fool to ask it, a fool to believe she might agree but he can't stop himself.

 

She's silent.

 

His ribs tighten with every second that she doesn't reply, closing in around his lungs as she looks at him. The uncertainty in her eyes colouring his panic, making it throb and stutter in his skull.

 

Then she nods. A tiny, hesitant little jerk of her chin and he can breathe again.

 

“For now.” She murmurs, eyes dropping from his at last. Suddenly fascinated with the folds in his scarf.

 

For a moment the darkness rises in him, the urge to demand more. To demand all of her. He bites it back. He will take whatever he can get. Whatever she will give. _For now._

 

Her hand moves over his, small fingers slipping between his own. Pulling their clasped palms away from her face, down between them, fingers still laced together. His anchor against the ghosts. Against everything.

 

“We should go.” She says to the ground. “You’ll make me late for work.”

 

All he can do is nod. Letting her pull him back through the forest towards the shuttle. She only stops to retrieve his forgotten mask, tucking it neatly under her arm.

  


-

  


He clutches her hand like a child. A hulking shadow at her shoulder, only he feels smaller now. Uncertain. Scared. Only loosening his grip when the ship appears, and even then only slightly. So possessive, even now, it makes her heart squeeze.

 

His methods are _wrong_ but his motives… well, now she knows them it’s harder to cast them aside. She has put herself through hell for her family, a family she couldn't remember. Who had willingly abandoned her. What would she have done for a _real_ link to her past?

 

What lengths would she go to avenge someone she _loved_?

 

She glances over at him, his hunched shoulders straightening up the closer they get to the shuttle. Slowly gathering the shredded tatters of his composure around him. His confidence returning with each step until, when they board the shuttle, it’s almost as if the trip has never happened. The ramp hissing closed on the tension of the day, sealing the memories out with the evening air.

 

She slips into the pilot seat without thought. He doesn’t protest, standing sentinel at her shoulder instead. As if unwilling to be more than a few centimetres away from her as she boots up the system.

 

The start up sequence takes longer than it should, the drivers running through an automatic upgrade. She sighs as it whirs and ticks, the screens stuttering as they reboot before she can fire up the propulsors. She startles when his hand finds her shoulder, jerking her gaze away from the screen.

 

He’s looking at her so intently she forgets how to speak, the sudden hitch in her breath far too audible in the hush of cockpit. The limbo zone between the planet and the Finalizer.

 

She is still angry. _So angry_ about what has happened. Guilty too. But she’s burnt out. Every nerve strung so tightly with repressed emotions that she can’t do anything but look back at him. Tracing the familiar pattern of his freckles with her eyes.

 

He runs his fingers along her jaw, leaning down to kiss her.

 

It’s raw. Urgent and tender all at once.

 

For a moment she falters beneath him, trembling as his lips move against hers. His kiss is long, lingering. Claiming every inch of her mouth as his fingers thread through her hair, knocking the hood from her head as he tugs her towards him.

 

It’s not enough.

 

A sharp, sudden fire ignites in her veins. Flooding her with liquid heat as the spark becomes a supernova. She twists in her seat, scrabbling up on her knees against the black leather to catch at him. To pull him closer, press herself flush against his chest and pour every inch of her turmoil into the kiss.

 

He is everywhere. All powerful and unbearably vulnerable at the same time and she clutches at him. She _needs_ this. This heated contact, the way he can sear every doubt from her head with his touch.

 

She’s reaching for his collar, desperate for more, when the ship beeps and shudders beneath them. Initiating takeoff sequence at last.

 

The sound cuts through her like a knife, sending her reeling back. She turns away, flushed and breathless. Hands trembling as she reaches for the controls. He stumbles into the seat beside her, one hand still clenched around the arm of her chair. A small act of possession that keeps the fire burning in her veins.

 

Reality is waiting for her, trying to sinking into her through the cold metal of the controls as she launches from the planet surface on instinct. She pushes it back. If it had been any other time she would have insisted on flying it the whole way herself, of prolonging every minute she can grab behind the controls. Bask in the joy of flight for as long as possible. But she doesn’t.

 

She locks it into the auto-nav as soon as she’s able.

 

The heat in her is threatening to burn her alive, a selfish, consuming desire that has her rising from her seat as soon as the ship stabilizes.

 

She needs her power back.

 

Her control over herself.

 

Over him.

 

He’s waiting. Watching her with fever-bright eyes, his chest rising and falling in uneven gasps.

 

“ _Rey-_ ”

 

“Please,” She struggles to keep her voice even, keep the desperation from her tongue as she stands before him. “Don't.”

 

She lets her shields fall, opening herself up to everything he’s feeling. The rush of his confusion, the pulse of his desire. Drowning herself willingly in it as she pulls her borrowed cowl over her head. The course wool pooling by her feet, followed swiftly by her shirt.

 

The cold air of the cockpit does nothing to chill her feverish skin. To cool the burning that’s risen within her.

 

She presses forward, hooking her knees over either side of his as she straddles his hips in the plush leather chair. Breathing hard as she takes his face in her hands. Grip just a little too tight for comfort. “Just… don’t say anything.”

 

He nods silently, pupils blown wide with lust. Something reverential burning in them as his hands splay across her spine. He’s taken his gloves off at last, electricity sparking from every place their skin meets.

 

A heart beat passes as she waits. Basking in this moment, in his unthinking submission, before the heat becomes too much. She lays claim to him. Kissing him violently. _Urgently_. Her turn to demand now, dragging her mouth away to press kisses to his jaw, his ears, scrabbling angrily at the collar that denies her access to the tender skin of his throat.

 

She tugs at his surcoat, his tunic, pulling at them until she can press her mouth against his shoulders, wrap her teeth around the harsh line of his collar bone. He groans beneath her as she grinds her hips against his, feeling him through the fabric. Hard and ready as he clutches at her tight enough to bruise. She welcomes them, the marks prove she’s not alone. That he’s real even when they’re apart. That _this_ is real.

 

And she always makes sure to leave some of her her own. To remind him of exactly who he spends his nights with.

 

Who he gives his body too.

 

She bites down harder, making sure to add another few to his collection. Sweet little red patches against his pale skin that will soon mottle purple.

 

_Hers._

 

It’s not enough though. Not now. There are too many layers between them still _._

 

And she needs _more._

 

His hands tear at her wraps, laying claim to the flesh beneath. She jerks against him as his long fingers fist in her hair, pulling her back so he can lathe his tongue along the exposed skin of her throat. Dragging his mouth down past her collarbone, slicking across her sensitive flesh in a way that makes her gasp and buck. In a way he knows makes her desperate.

 

Makes her _beg_.

 

But she won’t beg today.

 

She pushes him back. Bracing against his shoulders and slamming him into the chair as she leans over him. Panting hard, sweat slicking her hair to her temples as he looks up at her. Half mad with need. She can feel his frustration in her head, releasing it in a groan as she drags her hips deliberately against him. Pulling one hand away and leaning back just enough that he can watch as she teases it across her own flesh.

 

Showing him exactly what he can’t have.

 

Until she lets him.

 

“Rey-” He growls, deep and harsh. The words shaking through her.

 

“No.” She surges forward, kissing him harshly. Teeth and tongue and fire as he grasps at her. “Don’t. _Speak_.”

 

He complies, but she can feel his control slipping. So used to demanding, to taking, that he can barely stand it. It feels like battery acid in her veins. This is a dangerous game she’s playing, testing his resolve like this. But she revels in it. Electric heat coursing through her as she reaches for his belt, scrabbling with the catch before turning her attention to the fastening at his waist.

 

He shifts beneath her. Low, guttural noises tearing free as he fights to keep his mouth shut against her ministrations. Unable to see or think of anything past this moment. Of the weight of him in her hand, the way his eyes roll up in his head as he bucks and twists under her.

 

It’s pulsing in her head, her bones, she can feel his desire climbing. Waiting until he’s on the edge of breaking before pulling away. Warding him off with a dark look as she stands and he tries to follow. Tries pull her back into his arms, to get her to finish what she started.

 

She taunts him, dancing out of reach as his glare scorches her right down to her toes. A delicious warning. He’s on the verge of losing himself completely, she can feel the madness in him as she draws away and it makes her heart _stutter._  

 

She has already lost so much of herself to him.

 

This is only fair that he feels this too.

 

She lingers there for one long moment, drawing out the tension. But she’s torturing herself now as well as him and it’s more than she can bear. Casting the rest of her clothing aside she reclaims her place, his relief pouring through her like something physical.

 

It feels strangely… _wicked_. To be like this. Her sweat-slicked skin rubbing against coarse fabric as she straddles him. Guiding him to where she needs him most. But she doesn’t care.

 

It feels _good_.

 

And she _needs_ to feel good.

 

Stars burst behind her eyes as she slides down onto him, hearing herself cry out as she takes him into her. Wondering if she’ll ever get used to the heat of him inside of her, the way his power wraps around her until he’s everywhere. Inside and out.

 

She rolls her hips. Slowly, steadily moving against him. Forcing him down as he tries to take charge again. He holds himself still but she can feel the last threads of his control in her head, strung as tightly as the muscles in his shoulders as she sets the pace.

 

He growls into her neck. Pitiful, frustrated noises as she makes him beg. Makes him plead wordlessly against her skin as she rides him. It’s almost too much for her. She digs her fingers into his scalp, dragging them through his ungodly soft hair and pulling him back. She needs to see him. Needs to _know_ she's in control still.

 

He doesn’t disappoint. Black eyes burning for her as she meets them. She lets herself fall into them, giving herself over to the desire she finds there. The frustration. The need.

 

_The reverence._

 

It is impossible to think of him as a monster when he’s looking up at her like she’s the stars.

 

The bright tunnel of hyperspace paints his pale skin in cerulean in the half-light of the ship. Then he gasps her name and she can’t stop it. The tight thread of pleasure winding through her breaks, her whole body clenching. Heat flooding through her, drowning out everything but him as she tightens around him. Eyes squeezing shut as it washes away everything else.

 

No more doubts. No more fears. Only this.

 

_Him._

 

She’s lost to her release, feeling his control snap through a haze of pleasure. His hands seizing her hips as he drives into her. Shouting her name as he buries himself deep within her, spending himself completely.

 

She’s shaking as they tumble back into the seat, sweat cooling on her skin. A stark contrast to the warmth of him beneath her. The solid press of black wool against her cheek as she buries her face against his shoulder. He holds her tightly, his chest rising unsteadily beneath her as his fingers trace up and down her spine. Little starbursts bursting through her tired muscles with each touch.

 

For one long moment everything is quiet.

 

Everything is forgotten.

 

And then the ship shudders as they fall out of hyperspace. The Finalizer filling the viewport as she glances back, slapping her in the face with the reality of what she’s done.

 

She has done the unthinkable today, the unforgivable. On his orders. And instead of running, instead of pushing him away she’d pulled him even closer instead. She’d done _this_.

 

Shame flickers through her, hastily raising her shields as his gaze focuses on her. She pulls away, struggling to gather her composure as she hurriedly dresses. Reaching for her bag and pulling her jumpsuit on instead of her borrowed outfit, the poly-blend feeling strangely alien now.

 

She avoids his eyes as she stuffs the evidence of the trip away in her work bag. Trying to ignore the way he watches her as he straightens his own uniform. His fingers stilling as he reaches for his forgotten mask. Not putting it on, not yet.

 

Her hands flutter over the controls, helping lock the ship into the automatic landing course before she faces him at last. Trying to ignore the way her face heats as she finally meets his gaze.  


“I’ll wait until the hangar clears,” she says with a calmness she doesn’t feel, trying to adjust her zipper with trembling hands. “Then I’ll sneak out.”

 

His hands cover hers, he hasn’t put the gloves back on yet. It makes her heart ache. He carefully pulls the little metal catch the rest of the way up for her, smoothing his palms across her collar bones to rest over her shoulders.

 

She wants more than anything to sink into this touch again, to give into the comfort he offers her.

 

But she can’t, not yet.

 

“I’ll be waiting.” He says, voice tight with things she’s not letting herself feel. Mouth reddened with her kisses.

 

She nods.

 

Then he’s putting his gloves back on, slipping the mask over distinctly tousled hair. No trace of what they’ve done remaining as the ship docks and he sweeps off. Making sure to draw the attention of the surrounding personnel with him.

 

Leaving the loading dock empty for just long enough that she can dash away. It’s not as easy getting off the shuttle as it is on, a mad scramble down the ramp that has her already abused heart racing. She keeps a steady pace until she reaches the junction in the lower corridor.

 

The left passage will take her back to her quarters. To safety. She can sleep there tonight, separate herself from him after the turmoil of the day. Start reclaiming her old life, piece by piece, in preparation for leaving the ship. She'll _never_ have to be in that situation again. Never be faced with that kind of darkness.

 

It would be a clear sign of her independence. That despite everything he still cannot have her, not fully.

 

The right corridor leads to the service shaft, to the elevators up to the top floor. To him.

 

She closes her eyes and makes her choice.

 

Guilt gnawing at her as she darts down the right corridor, pressing the button to summon the lift.

  



	24. The Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lesson in the joys of avoidance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *waves* Hi guys! I hope you enjoy the new chapter, your comments really do keep me writing! <3  
> I'm not sure when I'll be able to get the next one up (I gotta busy weekend of growing old planned :P) Buuuut I hope it's not too long! See you all next time when I shall be older, and yet not the slightest bit wiser! ;-)
> 
> Rellentine, thank you for making sure my inner fluffy monster still kept it's claws. <3

 

It’s almost too easy to slip back into the routine.

 

The trip isn’t mentioned, not once in the passing days since they’ve returned from Kegan. He tells himself it’s deliberate, that he’s carefully biding his time. Drawing her back into the fold before pushing further.

 

There's a wariness to her still.

 

A subtle distance that wasn't there before, only just now beginning to fade beneath the wash of familiarity. He's careful to keep her lessons physical, force manipulation and saber forms, feeling her hesitancy to use her other powers.

 

The ones she used to such glorious effect in the forest.

 

She's tasted the darkness now. Felt it's true strength, the sick-sweet pull of it. The inevitable guilt it brings. Guilt she's not yet fully learned to bury. To rationalise away beneath the banner of necessity.

 

He will have to be careful to ease her back into it. To settle her back into her rightful place at his side. A delicate game of wills he is determined to win.

 

But he’s no longer sure of his own motives.

 

That for all his talk of rationalisation and smoothing her transition into the darkness, maybe the reason he doesn’t mention it hasn't got anything to do with  that at all. That perhaps it all comes down to something far more simple.

 

Perhaps he just never wants her to look at him like _that_ again. Like she had back on the planet surface, her hazel eyes glowing green in the light streaming through the trees. Piercing him right through with her horror. Her disgust. Seeing the _true_ extent of his darkness and balking from it.

 

Seeing nothing but the mask instead of the man.

 

He can’t pinpoint the moment they became different to him, the man and the mask. It has been as much a part of him as his skin for longer than he cares to remember. More familiar than his own face.

 

Only… Things are different now.

 

He is not the same man as he was before her.

 

And he can’t let himself think about it.

 

That way lies madness. He can't allow himself to dwell on the changes taking place beneath the edges of his thoughts. Pushing it all back and focusing on his work instead, on redirecting his troops into the Western Reaches. It’s the only thing that can distract him from her now. His legacy. Feeling the rising terror, the elation, that comes when he thinks about how close he is now to finishing his Grandfather’s work. Fulfilling his glorious destiny at last.

 

And after, in the wake of his magnificent victory, _that_ is when he will reveal his apprentice to the Supreme Leader. Certain her hand in his triumph will help prove her worth, prove the value she has at his side.

 

Part of him flinches at the thought, the part of him which could almost resent Snoke for the distance he puts between them. The hurdle they have yet to jump. The part of him which secretly dreads his reaction. But the Supreme Leader has always done what is best for him, and there is no way he could fail to see how much more powerful he is when she is beside him.

 

And after that...

 

Well. There will be time for that later. He has to actually find Skywalker first, put an end to this whole grisly business.

 

He straightens his spine when he realizes just how long he’s spent pouring over nav-charts, joints protesting as he reaches another dead end in his search. Sighing, he moves to pull the creases from his collar. His fingers brushing the marks she's left on him. They throb beneath his touch. Possessive little shocks that shoot through his entire being as he sets his tunic to rights.

 

_Hers._

 

He's been so consumed with claiming her he has never truly considered the reverse. How, without even knowing it, she has crawled her way inside of him. Taking possession of his being unlike any before her, even the Supreme Leader and his infinite wisdom.

 

Her’s is a different sort of claiming.

 

She has not forced her way in, shaped his thoughts or whispered into his mind about who he could be. No offerings of power or glory. No ill intent to it, no darkness, not even when she sat astride him and ripped his composure to shreds with her kisses.

 

No, hers is a different sort of control. She has somehow quietly, unerringly, worn away at him until he realizes he would do anything to be allowed near her.

 

His heart clenches at the thought, praying she never finds out.

 

That _no one_ ever finds out just how much he has come to rely on her.

 

If he can keep this weakness his own perhaps it will never be used against him.

 

The door whirrs open behind him, startling him from his work. She’s there. Almost as if he’s summoned her with his thoughts.

 

She no longer lingers in the doorway when she arrives, walking into the room as if it is her own now. He supposes in a way it is, at least partially.

 

 _Their’s_.

 

Now he looks he can see a hundred tiny markers of her presence.

 

The scuff marks beneath the second chair. The stolen set of cutlery she keeps in the storage cupboard for when they eat together, the spare uniform beside it. The training shirt folded haphazardly beside the bed, the one she’s taken to sleeping in.

 

Gradual changes that he hasn’t really noticed until now. The way she’s slowly, carefully, allowed herself to be coaxed into his domain. The way that, in return, she's made it her own.

 

He pulls himself out of his thoughts as the door closes behind her, she's already looking to him expectantly. It’s Centaxday.

 

She only works the morning shift on Centaxday.

 

He has always used this time to teach her the most challenging lessons. Reserving it for the most complex of forms and theories. Only today he has forgotten, so wrapped up in his work, in what has happened, he has completely neglected to plan anything for her.

 

It’s inexcusable.

 

But there’s not much he can do about it now.

 

“Well?” She asks carefully, already unzipping her navy uniform and pulling the sleeves about her waist. “What am I learning today? Should I get the sabers out?” She hesitates, brow creasing ever so slightly when he doesn’t immediately respond. “Ren?”

 

He closes his files, folding away the workstation before turning his full focus to her at last. There is no more he can do right now anyway, not until he hears back from the commander.

 

“I thought we might eat first,” he says airily, brushing off her concerns with a shrug. A lie, but it gives him time to think. To plan. And well, he has missed lunch himself, and it’s important they both keep their strength up after all. “Then we can work on your training.”

 

She can't keep her eyes from lighting up, the way they always do when he offers food. He has noticed how careful she is not to ask for it though. Not once suggesting in anything more than the vaguest of terms that they eat together, always waiting for him to make the first move. He wonders if she thinks it’s a weakness, to ask for things like that, or whether it’s simply that she’s been so used to eating alone she doesn’t even think of it.

 

“I suppose we could. I mean, if you insist.” She teases, her first real smile since they returned. Small, tired, but _real._

 

He can feel the hesitant echo of her pleasure dancing in his head as he rises, wanting to grab onto it with both hands. Restraining himself as she falls automatically into step with him as he crosses to the data panel in the wall.

 

He calls up the order form, pausing as he reaches to run through it on instinct. A sudden uncertainty falling over him as she peers casually at the screen from his side.

 

“Is there anything in particular... ?” He trails off. He has never asked her before, never thought to question her tastes. He’s not entirely sure why he’s decided to do so now.

 

“Oh-” Her eyes widen. She looks almost as taken aback at hearing the question as he was in asking it, feigning disinterest as she glances away. “I don’t mind. I’ve never… I don’t really know what most of them are.” She forges on with a dismissive wave, even as his heart squeezes at the uncertainty in her voice. “I’m sure whatever you order is fine.”

 

Before he can stop himself he’s jammed in an order for three times as much food as normal. Selecting more dishes than they could ever eat at once.

 

She deserves to try everything. _Know_ everything.

 

And he intends to be the one to show her.

 

She visibly startles when the door finally buzzes and she catches sight of the three service droids waiting outside. Piled high with trays. He can’t help but feel a little smug at the sudden unguarded wave of delight that spills over her shields.

 

But then she hesitates. Turning her gaze almost warily back to him, as if to check it’s not a mistake. As if worrying it might be taken away from her.

 

She should know better.

 

There is very little he would deny her now.

 

He gives her the briefest nod as the droids roll in and her excitement returns. It’s heady to know he is the source of it. That she can feel this for him still, even after all that's passed between them. A new sort of satisfaction warming him at being the cause of her happiness, a bright, glowing thing in his chest as he watches. Like a supernova.

 

Light and breathtaking.

 

He forces it down. Stamping it out of himself as he straightens his shoulders against it, carefully strengthening his shields just enough that it doesn’t blind him. He should have no place for that sort of weakness. Not even now. Reminding himself of his goals. His ambition.

 

This is a plot.

 

A plan.

 

This is to make sure she _stays._

 

That’s all.

 

He still can’t pull his eyes from her though as she goes through her mealtime ritual, un-ladening the droids and sending them off with a quiet thanks and nod. Spreading the dishes out across the table with reverent care. She won’t start eating until everything’s in it’s place and, if she knows he’s joining her, he’s sat beside her.

 

A sign of respect maybe. He’s not sure.

 

“Well?” She blinks up at him as she drops into her chair, fork already in hand. “Are you going to join me or am I eating all this myself?” She smiles again as she regards the crowded table, “A challenge I am more than willing to accept, by the way.”

 

-

 

Rey has never seen so much food in her entire life.

 

Not like this. Over two dozen little metal dishes spread over the table until it's practically groaning under the weight. Spices and fish and vegetables the likes of which she’s never seen before, never smelt before. Rich sauces and lean meats and little bowls of sweet sauce she’s already dying to dip her fingers into.

 

It's enough to make her forget herself entirely. Driving the shadows from her thoughts more effectively than three days of double shifts and sparring sessions. 

 

Something inside of her has changed. She's never been scared of herself before, not really, not like this. But the darkness she felt in the forest... The lure of it. The power lurking inside the darkest parts of her mind. It's been slow to fade.

 

Now though, confronted with such a feast it's easier to forget. The last tendrils of darkness slipping away from her under the bright glow of warmth it awakens in her chest.

 

He's done this for her. 

 

Ordered more food then they could ever eat just because she said she'd never tried it before. Just to make her... happy.

 

It's a strange feeling, in the best way, warming her up from within as she waits for him to join her. Holding up a little metal bowl to try and coax him faster to her side, stomach already rumbling with anticipation. 

 

“Ren?”

 

The corner of his mouth twists wryly, that dark little half smile that does terrible things to her heart. She can’t help the answering smile that stretches across her face, more than willing to forget the darkness of the past as he folds himself down beside her. He’s already pushing certain dishes towards her for her opinion. Explaining, when she prompts him, what each of them is and where they’re from.

 

She likes everything. Each new flavour more delicious than the last, heart still beating wildly that he has done this for her. This strange, impulsive act of affection **.** It’s sweeter even than the pterathki meat in cane syrup.

 

Ren is less obviously enthusiastic. She can see his self restraint set in the rigid line of his shoulders, in each calculated bite. He’s obviously trying to stick to the same few dishes they usually order, the plainest. Although she’d be hard pressed to describe any of this as _plain._ Not after a lifetime of rations. Unable to kee herself from rolling her eyes at his dignified table manners even as she licks the sauce from the bottom of the bowl.

 

With a little coaxing though she gets him to try the rest.

 

Noticing how his eyes soften when he takes a bite of the soft, brown pastry in the furthest dish. Ryscate, he says it is. His face shutters ever so slightly when he tells her it’s a delicacy from Corellia, eaten most often on special occasions, and to remember the planet when offworld. An odd piece of information she stores away for further study, wondering if that's his home world.

 

He must have a home world, surely, although she can't imagine it. A city planet maybe, or snow planet. She can't picture him in a desert.

 

Then again, maybe he's like her. Despite her best efforts Jakku was never really her home. Maybe they can only belong to the stars.

 

She puts the thought away and picks up  another dish. By the time she reaches the roast galma she’s so stuffed she thinks she may well pass out on the table. She hasn’t been this full in…

 

Well. She hasn’t been this full. Not ever.

 

It’s a strange new sensation. One that makes her groan as she pushes the rest of the food away from her, licking the last drops of sauce from her fingertips as she drops her head onto the cool metal of the table.

 

“I need a Dead Sleep.” She mutters, feeling the welcome press of coldness on flushed cheeks

 

His brow crinkles as he looks down at her. Confusion writ large across his face. “Dead Sleep?”

 

It’s her turn to blink, pulling herself upwards to frown at him. “Yeah... have you never heard of them? Back on Jakku, in the months of R’iiaxanus it was expected.” She traces patterns on the cold metal, hearing her own voice through a heavy fog as she sinks back to that other life. The one she has grown further and further from until she half believes she imagined it. The desolation of the desert only lives behind her eyelids now, and in her dreams. “It gets far too hot to work at high-sun, if you tried you’d most likely die of heat exhaustion. Fall right off a wreck. So everyone observed the Dead Sleep, just for an hour or two when it’s at it’s worst. It meant you could preserve your energy and work longer into evenings.” She shrugs one shoulder. “Get more done.”

 

“Sounds… practical.” There's a tightness to his voice that makes her look up, a spark of something in his eyes that warms her right through. Concern almost.

 

She would laugh if she wasn't so full. Her shields becoming hazy, until she can feel his tiredness like her own. Their feelings moulding and melting as her eyelids grow heavy. No longer sure if she’s feeling her own dissatisfaction over her old life or his. She drags her fingertips back and forth over the nonsense patterns, trying to escape the pull of the memories.

 

“If it improves concentration and extends work hours,” He says, shrugging noncommittally and bringing her from her trance. “I suppose it makes sense.”

 

She can only blink at him for a moment, mouth falling open as he looks at anything but her. The meaning sinking into her tired brain. She snaps her mouth shut, spreading into a smile as she pulls herself to her feet and offers him her hand.

 

-

 

He isn’t sure where this acquiescence has come from, but he takes her hand when she offers it.

 

Letting her tug him to the bed.

 

There’s nothing sexual about this. Which somehow makes this worse, less able than ever to examine his own feelings. This isn’t animal need, the fight for control. None of the burning, blistering _desire_ he's grown to understand.

 

This is gentleness.

 

Soft touches and quiet complaining as she kicks off her boots, dragging him down into the sheets with her with a huff and dropping her head onto his chest.

 

He has no framework for this. No reference to hold it too as he carefully wraps his arms around her. Trailing his fingers through the softness of her hair as she mutters something about wrecked starships and summer sunlight. Complaining even as she falls to sleep in his arms.

 

A telling vulnerability.

 

He should be glad. His plan to keep her is going better than he ever dared hope. The distance almost entirely gone now.

 

But it feels… strange. Disconcerting. He knows that, with her safely asleep, he should untangle himself from her. Carefully set her slumbering form aside and return to his work. There are things that still need checking, leads he could pursue still.

 

But he doesn’t.

 

He stays.

 

Marvelling at the warm press of her at his side, the way her fingers tighten against his chest as she dreams. Listening to the steady lullaby of her breathing as his eyelids fall.

 

There will be time later, for now he will rest.

 

Just for a moment.


	25. The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes our fears can only be faced in the unwaking world. Sometimes they're standing right outside our door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Hey there kitkats! Thank you so so much for the Birthday wishes! I had a super-fantastico day (even if it did mean I had to admit I was getting older :P) but I'm very happy to be back in the fanfic groove ;-) Your comments mean the absolute world to me!  
> Now for some prime Flangst! (MissD knows what I'm talking about :P)
> 
> Rella-Lisa, your smile is as mysterious as the source of your writing prowress. Thank you for sticking with me on all three wildly different versions of this chapter and saving my butt from using the word 'abandoned' one too many times ;-P ))

 

 

It’s a familiar dream.

 

One that had been almost been comforting to Rey the first few weeks she’d spent onboard. Closing her eyes and finding herself once more in the dimly lit interior of her old home. The remnants of the day’s heat clinging with the sand to her skin, the hum of the generator in the background and the familiar sizzle-spark of veg-meat cooking on the stove.

 

No Finalizer. No canteens crammed with people or hard-dat a cables needing replacing.

 

Just her, alone in the vastness of the desert. A graveyard full of space ships to plunder and no one to worry about but herself. Peaceful.

 

Only now... it’s a nightmare.

 

She scrambles to her feet, knocking the skillet to the floor as a soul-deep terror claws at her.

 

This isn’t _right._

 

She shouldn’t be here.

 

Forgetting it’s a dream completely as she hears a familiar whine of an engine in the distance. Scrabbling to open the hatch, her hands are unforgivably sluggish and slow. Frustration rising in her throat as they refuse to respond to her.

 

She has to get out. Find her way back to the ship.

 

They can’t leave her here, not now.

 

Not _again._

 

The door shudders open at last and she over-balances. Falling hard into the middle of the desert. Her knees sinking into the hot sand as she gapes up at the disappearing starship. Voice echoing strangely off the dunes around her as she tries to shout after it, scream and wave and kick until they notice her. Until they come back.

 

But it’s no use, it’s already breaking the atmosphere, becoming little more than a dark smudge against the horizon as she cries.

 

Only it’s not the usual ship. The mid-weight family freighter that has haunted her since her earliest memories.

 

It’s an Upsilon class command shuttle.

 

Her mouth slams shut, choking on a sob as a violent stab of betrayal rips through her. Realizing who has done this to her, who has abandoned her here this time to rot on the desert planet.

 

The pain is physical. When she glances down there’s red staining her jumpsuit, a black hilt sticking from her chest. Burning plasma. Carving a hole where her heart should be.

 

She wakes gasping, clawing at her chest desperately. For a second she can’t tell where she is, the sheets are too soft, too warm. Scrabbling backward, she tries to right herself. To connect the cool grey walls she’s seeing with the pale blue sky imprinted against her mind.

 

For a moment she calms, relief washing through her as she remembers she’s on the Finalizer still. That she’s safe, secure in the ship.

 

Then Ren reaches for her.

 

The pain in her chest flares at the sight of his face. Pulling away from his touch sharply, her nails catching against his arms as she shoves him back. Suddenly blinded by fury and an almost pathetic sense of loss.

 

_How could he?_

 

It takes everything in her to remember it was a dream. It felt so real _._ So vivid she can barely stand to look at him, to see the concern written in his eyes when she still blames him for what just happened. For cutting her down and abandoning her, confirming all her worst fears.

 

She’s being ridiculous, It was a dream, nothing more. Brought on by too much rich food and stress most likely, it doesn’t _mean_ anything. She forces herself to breathe. Trying to push the images out with every steady exhale.

 

_Just a dream._

 

She hasn’t been betrayed again.

 

_Yet._

 

“Tell me.” He demands as she relaxes at last. Her shoulders drooping as she pushes damp hair from her eyes. Not quite ready to meet his gaze as he pulls himself up to sit beside her, his panic still beating against her mind.

 

“It was nothing.” She lies, dropping her head onto his shoulder. Focusing on the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek instead of the adrenaline still rushing through her blood. Trying to ignore the faint urge that still lingers in her, the one that tells her to push herself away from him, to confront him over the imagined betrayal.  “I had a bad dream. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to eat so much before sleeping.”

 

“What was it?” She can hear him struggling to keep the command from his voice this time. When she glances up there’s so much feeling in his eyes, like a hurt child, that she can’t help but reply. Dropping her gaze to her hands as she realizes how stupid she’ll sound. An old familiar anger at herself sparking in her chest.

 

“I was back on Jakku,” She shrugs, suddenly fascinated by the hangnail on her right thumb. Trying to control the irritation now rolling from her shoulders as she plays it off as nothing. “Being left again.”

 

She says it’s like it’s no big deal. Like it happens to everyone. Like she’s not bearing yet _another_ part of her soul to him she’d always sworn to keep private. The thought stinging her already savaged nerves.

 

“Shouldn’t we be training right now?” She asks abruptly, moving to pull away. To shut this weirdness out where it belongs and get on with her life, the way she’s always done. He catches her arm, gently now. Almost too gently. Making her angrier still as she levels a glare on him.

 

“By your parents?” He asks, ignoring her question completely as he looks at her like he understands her. _Truly_ understands her.

 

The glare falters.

 

She shrugs, not sure why she can’t outright lie to him anymore. Looking determinedly away instead as she doesn’t mention whose ship it was that deserted her this time, whose blade it was that had left her skewered her on the sand.

 

Feeling the familiar touch of his mind against hers, she slams up her shields. Trying to lock him out before he can see too much. Disorientated as a wave of concern rolls over her. She hears his sharp intake of breath behind her and realizes she wasn’t fast enough, his hands catching her shoulders. Forcing her to face him.

 

She narrows her eyes, anger rising like a storm. Unimpressed at this new invasion of her privacy, trying to fuel it into her stubborn rage only to find her emotions twisting pathetically out of control. Too hurt to do much more than stare at him accusingly.

 

“I will _never_ leave you.” He says it almost angrily, with so much conviction she’s not sure if it’s a promise or a threat.

 

Her heart clenches at the finality of the statement.

 

It should frighten her. Fire her rage, force her grip even tighter around the last few boundaries she’s got built between them. But... she’s been alone for so long.

 

So, _so_ long.

 

She can’t find the strength to fight it right now.

 

She _wants_ his words to be true.

 

Threat, promise. She doesn’t even care. Wanting to believe, even just for a second, even just with him, that there is someone in the galaxy who won’t let her down.

 

Who won’t abandon her.

 

The words stick in her throat, so she nods instead. Trying to think of a way to tell him everything. That no matter how hard she tries not to, no matter how much she hates herself for it, she _needs_ this.

 

Needs _him._

 

Something in his eyes changes, turning molten, and he’s reaching for her. Fingers sliding up from her shoulders to graze across her neck. Trailing sparks in their wake as he captures her face between his palms.

 

She leans into the touch, eyes fluttering shut as he draws her closer. Giving into the moment completely as his lips graze hers. A tortuously slow kiss. When he pulls back she knows without doubt that in this moment, here and now, he could ask her _anything_ and she’d agree.

 

-

 

She thought he could abandon her.

 

_After everything._

 

A quick glance into her unshielded mind had shown him the truth of it. Had explained the blinding panic. The way he’d jerked awake to find her fighting against the black sheets, hurling herself away from him when he’d reached for her. Looking at him with such horror, such accusation, it felt like she’d cut him open from within.

 

He is the reason.

 

Or, at least, she _thinks_ he is.

 

He has never felt a rage like it. A thundering pulse in his skull as he drowns in her distress. She _still_ cannot fathom the truth of it. After all the time they’ve spent together, the effort he has expended in sculpting her powers, in improving her life. The way… the way he…

 

He sucks in a harsh breath.

 

She’s everything.

 

She’s _his._ He’s _hers._ There’s a certainty in his bones telling him that nothing short of death will stop this now and yet still she doubts him. And it _hurts._ Feeling her pain as his own as he finds himself scrambling to say something, _anything_ to convince her of his feelings.

 

“ _I_   _will never leave you_.” He puts everything into the words. They’re the only ones he has, inelegant as they may be. But then he supposes there’s nothing particularly elegant about his feelings for her. They are raw, urgent, ungainly things. Possessing all the subtlety of a blaster shot to the chest.

 

Something wavers in her eyes.

 

His words have landed true.

 

And then, so suddenly it leaves him breathless, he can feel the rest. Her pain. Her _longing._ The depth of her loneliness. It matches up with his, every curve and corner. How much she _wants_ it to be true. The fear she has of giving into it. The self-reproach.

 

It’s like looking into a mirror.

 

His heart seizes, seeing the acquiescence in her face as she nods. Hesitant and yet _burning._ Needing this just as much as he does.

 

Before he can think his hands are moving, tracing over her golden skin. Smooth and fragile and _strong._ Her eyes falling shut as her chest hitches in a ragged gasp. He can _feel_ her willingness chasing through him like a flame.

 

It’s almost more than he can bear.

 

Leaning forward he captures her mouth, pouring every inch of himself into the languid kiss. Proving firmly, thoroughly, just how much she means to him. She melts beneath him. Seeing the acceptance in her eyes as he draws away. She will stay, if he asks her now, she will stay.

 

He’s opening his mouth, words primed to cement their union when a loud buzz splinters the moment.

 

-

 

The sound shocks through her, sending Rey jerking back as the tension breaks beneath it.

 

She pulls in an unsteady breath, staring stupidly at the door as it buzzes again. And again. Short, insistent bursts, so out of sync with the moment she can’t quite wrap her head around it. No one ever calls at his door.

 

Well, except for her of course.

 

“I’m already here.” She says, unforgivably breathless as she twists her hair back. Aiming for awkward humour in the wake of… whatever _that_ was. Her heart still jumping like a beast in a trap at just how much she’d nearly given up to him, how _willing_ she was. She clears her throat. “Do you have another apprentice stored away somewhere I should know about?”

 

“I think one of you is more than enough.” He mutters, eyes still flashing darkly at her. The possessive fire lingering in them even as his irritation at being interrupted washes over her. “Whoever it is they are obviously lost or suicidal.”

 

She punches him in the arm, blushing even as she frowns at him. Ready to warn him off doing bodily harm to what, in most likelihood, is a mis-programmed service droid when the intercom crackles.

 

“I know you’re in there Ren! Open the door _this instant!_ **”**

 

Definitely _not_ a service droid, then.

 

The colour drains from Ren’s face. An instant, sharp snap of anger twisting his face as he startles up from the bed.

 

“ _Hux_.” He says it in the same tone as the traders at the Outpost used when talking about the worst sort of vermin, the ones who ate through the most valuable parts of a wreck.

 

Maker, _perfect._

 

Her pulse leaps, adrenaline returning full force as she stares wide-eyed at the door. Of course it would be Hux. He is after all exactly the last person in the universe who needs to find her rumpled and flushed in the quarters of Lord Kylo Ren. Especially when there is no possible reason for her to be there.

 

She can feel Ren’s rage spilling out of him as his fists clench at his side. His panic mingling with her own as he turns to gesture impatiently for her to hide. Her senses return as he kicks her workbag under the bed. Cursing quietly underneath her breath as she takes the hint and throws herself down onto the floor with a thud. Rolling beneath the bed as she hears his footsteps head for the door.

 

She can practically taste her heart in her mouth as the door wooshes open. Pulse racing like an engine as she flattens herself against the cold durasteel floor. This was _not_ the way she had expected the day to go.

 

-

 

_Hux._

 

Come to ruin everything, as usual.

 

Ren strides towards the door. The most painful, fragile hope he’s ever known crushed beneath the weight of his anger as he checks Rey’s out of sight before slamming open the door.

 

A new concern starts to dawn on him, creeping along his spine, clammy and insidious as he braces his arm on the frame. Trapping Hux in the hallway when he tries to stride past him.

 

Milky blue eyes glaring up at him.

 

If Hux finds out about his apprentice there is no way he’ll keep it quiet.

 

The ginger cretin will be on the first shuttle to Starkiller, tripping over himself to spill his secrets to Supreme Leader Snoke in the most _sordid_ way possible. Panic blossoms in his chest. They’re not ready, not yet. He has it all planned out, the exact moment he’ll reveal her to his Master. Every moment decided, every careful word scripted. If Hux gets their first, twists the truth with his forked tongue, it could ruin _everything._

 

He channels his fear into rage. Schooling his face into a mask of cool indifference. The General’s usually pale face turned ugly red, eyes popping, practically spitting steam after being left so long in the hallway.

 

The rant is immediate. A tirade on responsibilities and respect. Ren only listens with half an ear, the rest of his attention fixed on Rey still. A constant touch on her mind, making sure she’s safe. Out of sight. Feeling her irritation rise with his own as the unwanted man lingers in the doorway.

 

Then Hux pauses, his eyes straying to the room behind him. Ren stiffens, refusing to glance back as a sneer passes over the other man’s face. _What has he seen?_ Ren searches his memory for any sign of her he might have overlooked before opening the door.

 

“Oh I’m sorry, was I interrupting your _banquet?”_ Hux’s lip curls and Ren remembers the table. The dozens of empty dishes still scattered over the surface. He forces the stab of panic down, it’s food. Nothing more. Rey is still safe.

 

Ren fixes the General with his most impassive look, coloured with absolute contempt as he steps forward. Pushing the shorter man back and blocking his view of the room further. Forcing those beady eyes back to his face.

 

“Are you here to interrogate me on my eating habits, General?” He asks flatly. “Or did you have a reason for disturbing me?”

 

“The Supreme Leader requires your presence at week’s end.” Hux’s eyes narrow with disdain, showing just how clear it is that he can’t understand _why._ But Ren can feel something else behind them. _Suspicion._ It feeds into his anger. His fear. “You’ve been neglecting your duties, Ren. Too busy gorging yourself, clearly.”

 

Ren could kill him now. End the suspicion in one fell swoop. He can feel his power rising, hands clenching as he reaches into the darkness. Something jabs at him, a sudden nudge of irritation. _Rey._ Reminding him to be calm, reminding him that murder might not be his wisest course of action.

 

He steadies himself. Nodding once at the General.

 

“If that’s all.” Ren doesn’t wait for a reply. Turning on his heel and slamming a hand onto the door mechanism. Leaving Hux gaping in the hallway as it closes between them.

 

He rests his head against it, letting out a short angry exhale at this new trouble.

 

Snoke wants to see him.

 

The thought fills him with an unexpected, guilty sort of dread. Hux is right, much as he is loathe to admit it, he _has_ been brushing off his regular duties aboard the ship. But he’s been busy with the hunt for Skywalker. A more than justified reason, closer than ever now to finding him. To finishing this. The Supreme Leader will understand that.

 

His progress should be enough to distract his Master. To keep his thoughts safe, for now. Until he’s ready.

 

An unpleasant weight creeps into his stomach as he considers it. An increasing dread at just how easily everything could fall apart.

 

“I _strongly_ dislike that man.”

 

He jumps at the voice. Eyes flying open just in time to see Rey drag herself out from behind the bed. Trying to tame the snarls in her hair as she glares at the door.

 

“I can’t fathom why.” He replies, lips tilting into a smile as the darkness retreats. Fear fading as he watches her brush the dust from her knees.

 

“Can we train, now?” She shoots him a hesitant smile, attempting to regain some normalcy. To nudge them back into their usual equilibrium. “I mean if you’re not expecting any more visitors.”

 

He nods, already moving to the storage area to retrieve their lightsabers. Gesturing her on ahead into the training room.

 

He will save his worries until he has use for them.

 


	26. Technical Complications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude on the hidden dangers of modern technology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's for the commenters, past and future, you are the treasures of any fandom and this story only exists because of you! Doesn't matter if it's a three words or three hundred - you guys are literally the only reason I've had the confidence to keep writing this thing! Crisp high fives all around! :P 
> 
> Thanks to the Mistress of the Knights of Rell for the beta ;-)

  


 

She’s almost grateful for the early shift. It doesn’t give her a lot of time to dwell on things.

 

No time to think too hard about what it means that she seems to have locked herself into a collision course with the man she should be running full speed away from. The one she has seen absolute darkness from, the one she has almost promised everything too. The one who makes her feel…

 

Rey doesn’t know what love is.

 

She has dim memories of it. Thinking perhaps it smelt like flowers and soap, felt like a warm embrace on a stormy night. Calm and safe. The holonovels she’s read say it’s like breathing for the first time, that it’s bright and beautiful. That it makes every broken edge of your soul complete when you’re with them, whole and perfect.

 

If that’s the case then this _isn’t_ love.

 

She doesn’t feel calm with him. She doesn’t feel _whole_ or _perfect._

 

She feels ragged. Ruined. Alive and electric. It _hurts_ and yet somehow she can’t get enough of it.

It doesn’t matter what he’s done, what _she’s_ done, he makes her feel like she _belongs_. Like she’s not alone anymore. It’s the closest to home she’s ever come and it terrifies her. Makes her wonder exactly what she’d do just to spend another moment with him.

 

The deadline is creeping closer by the second and she can’t think about it. Can’t think of the 24 days remaining before she has to say her choice aloud. About the fact she no longer knows what her decision will be. Or that she _does_ and she’s just not willing to admit it yet.

 

In whatever twisted way, he makes her _happy._ And she doesn’t want to ruin that yet with the cold light of reality.

 

For this instant all she wants is the peace of anonymity. To be her own woman still, until she can deal with this on her own terms.

 

She digs into the data-compressor, throwing her full focus into rerouting its streaming cables. She’s almost done, working twice as fast as usual. Elbow deep in hydraulic fluid as she puts the final touches to the cable fusing when Jay rounds the corner. Practically tripping over her on his way back to the break room.

 

If he’s tired he doesn’t show it, looking more excited than she’s ever seen him. Practically vibrating with it. His eyes light up, skidding to a halt in the deserted corridor to greet her. Slapping a huge hand onto her shoulder.

 

“Rey- Kid!” He grins as she frowns up at him. Bemused by his energy so early in the day. “You will _never_ believe what I’ve just discovered.”

 

She barely gets a chance to open her mouth and reply before he’s dropped down next to her, data-pad clenched tightly between fingers.

 

“I was troubleshooting the transport update this morning,” He rushes on. Not letting her respond as he braces his shoulder against the wall. “And I saw - Maker, you’ll never guess it!”

 

She rolls her eyes, feeling strangely indulgent towards the excitement washing off him. He’s trembling with it. In comparison to the turmoil inside her own head, this interaction is… simple. Easy.

 

Closing the wall panel up she sits back on her heels, giving him her full attention as she waits for whatever hilarious transport story he has inevitably discovered. Remembering the last time, the TIE pilot who had mishandled the controls whilst trying to adjust his pants and landed sideways in the bay. She’d snorted with laughter for a full half hour after that.

 

“You’ll never get it,” He burbles on. “I mean I hardly believe it and I saw it!”

 

“R’iia, Jay,” She tugs her scarf from her face, rolling her eyes at him good naturedly. “Just spit it out already.”

 

He beams back at her, voice dropping as he leans in close.

 

“ _Kylo Ren has a secret apprentice.”_

 

The magwrench slips from her fingers. She hears it clatter to the floor from a million miles away. The noise echoing dully in her skull against a backdrop of white noise. Cold, hollow terror filling her up from the inside until she thinks she will burst from it. A beacon of fear.

 

It’s only with a start that she realizes Jay is still talking, her distress invisible to him as he rattles off his tale.

 

“-and that’s when I saw the holocatch! It’s only a half second and blurry as hell but-”

 

She holds up a hand to stop him, snatching it back when she sees the way her fingers tremble. Forcing herself to be calm. To be clear. Even as her heart leaps like a trapped thing in her throat.

 

Jay doesn’t know who the apprentice is. Not yet. She must ensure he never does.

 

That this _never_ leaves the corridor.

 

“Say that again, Jay?” She asks, proud of how steady her voice is as she focuses her eyes on him. Powers rising instinctively to touch at his mind, trying to slip invisibly past his guards to pull the truth from him.

 

He laughs at her, rubbing a hand through his bristly blonde hair. “I lost it too when I saw it. Who’d have thought? But right, the security in the Upsilon shuttle is always off when Lord Ren’s scheduled to fly it. During the upgrade though it resets, all the systems rebooting for - for less than a second. Meaning I got my hands on a snapshot of something _no one_ was meant to see. Hang on-”

 

Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse.

 

Her face flushes, pulse thundering as she remembers _exactly_ what happened during the flight. Lungs seizing as he drags the image to life, terrified of what it is he might have caught on tape.

 

The holo flickers to life above the data pad. A split second of time frozen in front of them

 

It’s her.

 

Unmistakably, undeniably _her._

 

The hood still pulled up over her head as she looks up at Ren. One of his hands on her shoulder, the other drawing her chin towards him. Only a sliver of her face visible to the camera.

 

But she looks so... _different._

 

Alien even to herself. She looks strong next to him, powerful. Black garbed and foreign as she reaches back to him.

 

A matching pair.

 

It’s the light-coloured wraps around her arms that betray her. Blurry but visible in the image and distinctly hers. She clutches at the sleeves of her jumpsuit, checking they’re where they should be. She’s been careless before, certain Jay must have noticed them at one point or another. How many times have they they shared a locker room?

 

It’s only a matter of time before he puts two and two together.

 

“See?” He grins as she tries to swallow her heart back into her chest.

 

“Are you sure it’s not one of his Knights?” She hears herself ask, voice sounding tinny in her ears as she tries to formulate a plan. Tries to control the stabbing fear that’s taken root inside of her.

 

“Don’t look like any Knight I’ve ever heard of.” He scoffs, his elbow hitting her ribcage. Nudging her hard and making her flinch. “He’s getting far too… _personal_ with ‘em _._ If you know what I mean. Maker, if the camera had stayed on five more minutes I bet- Well. You can _imagine._ ”

 

Her stomach turns at the leering words.

 

If only he knew.

 

But if he won’t accept it’s one of his Knights that means he’ll tell the others. Then the staff will know, then Hux, then Snoke, then… then everything falls apart.

 

_What if they already know?_

 

She can’t breathe.

 

“Who - who else knows about this?” The words are fast, hard. Bitten out between shallow gasps as she struggles to control herself.

 

Jay is as oblivious as ever.

 

“No one yet - I was just going to the break room to share. Wait till the twins get a load of this.” He’s practically cackling, the _idiot._ “And Lim, he’ll shit a brick.”

 

Something about it calms her. He _is_ an idiot. And she can work with that.

 

She sucks in a breath, settling her thoughts like Ren has taught her. She hasn’t done this, influenced another mind, since the _incident_ in the forest. Her hesitation rises with her power, remembering the dark draw she felt when she pushed too hard. The rush of it. She fights it back, determined to use as little of her power as she can, to do this the right way.

 

“Maybe you shouldn’t show them,” Her voice is careful, concerned. Reaching out to lay her hand on his arm. A subtle spark of power flickering in her words.

 

He looks up at her at last, mouth falling slack as he gapes at her in confusion. “Whaddya mean kid?”

 

“Don't you think-” She lowers her voice, no need to disguise her fear now. Letting it colour her words instead. “I mean, if no one knows about it there’s probably a _reason_ right? And if it ever got up to the _higher ups_ , you could be…” She swallows hard. “Well, you know the stories, Jay. You _know_ what could happen.”

 

She knows the stories too. And what’s more she can imagine _exactly_ the lengths Ren would go to to silence him if were to threaten their balance. Remembering the darkness she felt rise in him when Hux had interrupted them before, how close he had come to silencing him for good.

 

She shudders.

 

It won’t come to that.

 

“Shit.” Jay’s face pales, eyes widening as the realization of exactly _what_ he’s found crashes over him. She can feel his fear, his hesitance, biting down on her tongue as relief rolls through her from it. “I never thought about it like that. You- you’re right. If anyone found out - jeez.” His skin turns blotchy, swiping at the sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Gotta keep this on the down low.”

 

“You should delete it.” She nods, trying not to seem to eager as she presses just a hint of her abilities into the words. Flicking her eyes up to him, feeling the low haze that gathers in his thoughts as his thick fingers move over the data pad. She reaches to stop him. She can’t risk his clumsiness now. “Actually let me do it, I’m really good at this kind of thing.”

 

Another nod as he hands it over. She can breathe again. Her fingers dance across the screen, scrabbling for the file source. Using every scrap of skills to destroy each and every trace of the vid she can find. Obliterating it.

 

“All done.” She sighs, almost dizzy with relief as she hands back the data-pad. “Let’s go back to the break room together, okay? Never mention this again.”

 

He jerks his head up and down in an eager nod. Face still pale as he stashes the pad away.

 

“You don’t think they’ll know do you?” Jay asks as they stand, eyes flicking about the empty corridor warily. “That… _he’ll_ know?”

 

She lets herself smile at that, falling easily into step with him as she sends warm little flickers of calmness into him. “Not a chance.”

 

They turn the corner.

 

“ _Rey-”_

 

Ri'ia save her.

 

Ren is waiting, striding towards her with darkness rolling off him in waves. Fear, _Anger._

 

Masked and towering, black-gloved hands reaching for her as her heart stutters at the sight of him. Surreal in the hallway as he takes hold of her shoulders. Six and a half feet of concentrated intensity focused solely on her.

 

“Are you har-.” Even through the filter she can hear the strain in his voice, words biting off as his attention focuses behind her. His power rising, darkness flowing over her as his hand shoots out. “ _You.”_

 

Jay is jerked off his feet as Ren’s power tightens around him. A cold sort of dread rushes her, and something else, _irritation._ Not stopping to think she hurls herself between them, arms spread wide.

 

“ _Ren!_ ” She hears herself shout, eyes narrowing as her own power swells in response. A buffer between them as she lowers her voice. “Put him down.”

 

The mask swerves back to her, and she can feel him glaring through the visor. The darkness that’s been building in him since they were interrupted by Hux two nights before spiralling out of control as he gestures to the man frozen behind them. “He _harmed_ you _._ I _felt_ it. _”_

 

“No, he didn’t.” She squares her shoulders, chin lifted stubbornly in the air. “It wasn’t like that.”

 

She shoots a quick glance back at Jay only to find him staring at her in horror. Face blotchy purple and wet with tears. Her stomach squeezes. Ice flooding her veins as she feels his horror clawing at her mind. He’s looking at her like she’s always dreaded, like she’s a _monster._

 

“It… It’s you…” He chokes out when their eyes touch, “You’re…”

 

The words are corrosive, biting through her shields and straight into her. A confirmation of her worst fears.

 

“What does he mean.” Ren turns to her sharply, mind reaching for hers as she tries to steady herself.

 

“He…” Her face pales, running a hand through her hair as she glances away. Trying to keep her shields even as the dizzying pulse of anxiety returns. “He found out. There was footage... from the shuttle.”

 

She can feel Ren’s power falter, practically feeling his heart jolt as he struggles to reign in his emotions. He remembers that journey as well as she does then. Steeling herself, she tries to follow his example. Tries to bury her feelings away, make them into something useful.

 

“What footage?” He asks, curt and careful now as he takes another step towards her.

 

“Just a snapshot, not of…” She waves descriptively. “Not enough to…” Her face heats, trying to telegraph the exact nature of the picture, letting her shields drop ever so slightly so he can read it from her mind. She sees his shoulders relax, just a little. Just enough. She bumps her chin up again, almost petulant as she crosses her arms and glares at him. “I deleted it. I _had_ the situation under control.”

 

A sharp nod and he’s moving past her.

 

“I’ll take care of it, now.” The words are a grim promise.

 

-

 

He recognizes the man. Mouth tightening beneath his mask as rage washes through him.

 

Technician one-eight-one. The one he had almost killed for daring to touch her before, the one she had laughed with. His darkness deepens, an aching throbbing thing that has him on the edge of madness. It is only the fierce power in her hazel eyes that’s keeping him from tearing the man limb from limb in this hallway.

 

 _He knows._ This low creature knows their secrets and yet she is still defending him. Keeping Ren from ending this here and now as he should. It is the necessary action, to silence this man forever and protect his apprentice. To safeguard themselves against it until he is ready for the rest of the world to know.

 

But she is still stopping him, even now, after everything.

 

The rage tightens.

 

He was working in his quarters when he felt it.

 

Her panic crashing through him all at once, sucking the air from his lungs. His heart stopping altogether as it stripped every thought from his head, burning through him and leaving him hollow in it’s wake.

 

He had come here without thought. Discarding everything, barely even remembering to snatch his helmet from the brazier before running to her.

 

Fear unlike anything he had even known taking hold of him as he locked onto the unsteady pulse of her terror. Determined to get to her. To _save_ her.

 

He’d been expecting her to melt beneath his touch, to throw herself into his arms. Tell him exactly what it was that has hurt her and let him solve it for her.

 

But instead she’s glaring up at him, irritation tightening her shoulders as she darts in front of him again. Standing in defense of the… the _man_ that had been the cause of her horror. The cause of the new wave of self-loathing he can feel washing against her shields.

 

She still has _compassion_ for him.

 

And it burns Ren.

 

Something in her gaze softens, suspicious still as she closes her hand around his outstretched fist. “What _exactly_ are you going to do?”

 

He tenses beneath the touch. She is his apprentice still, she should trust him in this as in all else. Her wariness stings him. It should enrage him, but instead… now… it only hurts.

 

“What is necessary.” He says. Firming his jaw as he tries to push down the prickling feeling her words have caused.

 

“Ren.” She takes another step towards him, her concern fluttering against his shields. Only there’s something else there now, alongside the fear, the self-loathing and suspicion. It’s warm, shining from behind her eyes even as she tries to keep her face guarded. “I want to handle this, _please._ ”

 

He falters at the softness in her voice. The feeling he can’t name that makes his heart leap even as his rage echos around in his ribs. He can deny her nothing, letting her gently push his hand back down to his side, feeling her touch linger far longer than it should as she steps away from him. Her shoulders rising unsteadily as she struggles to breathe.

 

She’s _hurting._

 

Beneath the anger, the fear, is pain. And it maddens him that she won't let him do this for her. Take this from her hands, save her from facing it.

 

He holds himself still as a calm mask slips over her features. She reaches a hand out to the other technician, the man flinching away from her. Horror clear in his gaze.

 

A whiplash of rage strikes through him, so suddenly he's barely able to keep himself from pulling her back. From taking her place before this fool and eviscerating him in the cruellest way he knows how. Silencing him completely so he can never harm her again.

 

She hesitates but stands firm. A deep breath and her power rises around them, it’s like sunlight. Strong and bright, sometimes warming, sometimes burning. He will not underestimate her now.

 

-

 

It’s sheer force of will that keeps her hand from trembling as she reaches for Jay’s mind. Even as she’s struck by the uncontrolled terror in his gaze. He’s looking at her like he doesn’t know her, like she’s some terrible monstrous thing that might strike him at any moment. It makes her skin crawl.

 

She fights it down. Channels the feeling into strength instead, sliding it into her voice as she refuses to back away from this.

 

It doesn’t matter what Jay thinks of her, it only matters what she thinks of herself. And she will prove to herself she can be both.

 

Warm and strong. Caring and dangerous.

 

“Jay.” She says, gaze focused laser sharp on him. “Forget this conversation, forget what you saw, the holovid, the conversation, Lord Ren. You’re shift went as usual.” She pauses, sucking in a deep breath as she sees the words take root behind his eyes. Sees it softening his gaze as she funnels her warmth into the command. “You’re tired now, you want to clock out and go to sleep. When you wake up everything will be normal.”

 

Jay nods, following her hand when she gestures him away. Walking off on jerky legs as he leaves them alone in the corridor at last. Her heart beating two at a time as the adrenaline rushes out of her. Leaving her exhausted with relief as she watches him leave.

 

She only looks back when Jay is safely out of sight. Heart thudding as she goes back to Ren, feeling the confused mess of his emotions pressing against her own. Trying to resist the urge to drop her head against the soft fabric of his surcoat and just let him hold her for a while. From giving in to the weakness he’s brought out in her, the need for contact she has lived her whole life without before.

 

“I could have dealt with it.” Ren says, voice distorted. If he were anyone else she would accuse him of sulking. Imagining his full lips turning into a pout beneath his mask and feeling her mouth quirk in response.

  
“I know.” She feels her pulse stutter as she reaches up on her tiptoes, pressing her palm to the cold metal of the mask as she adds. “Thank you.”

 

 _For not killing him._ She adds silently. _For trusting me to handle it._

 

_For trying to help._

 

He covers her hand with his own, the unfamiliar weight of the mask pressing into her palm as he turns his face into it.

 

“We have to be more careful.” She adds. Almost unwillingly. First Hux, now Jay. The knife edge they’re walking is getting more precarious by the day.

 

He watches her for a long minute and she finds herself missing his eyes, he’s so much harder to read behind blackened glass and duraplastic. She can hear her heartbeat in the hush of the corridor, unsteady in her ears as he nods at last.

 

“For now.”

 

She squeezes her eyes shut for a second, steadying herself before replying. “For now.”

 

 

 


	27. Mastery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A question of control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh I'm so sorry this chapter is so late! :P It was a roller-coaster from start to finish and I realllllllly hope you like it because I'm 10 years closer to death because of this beast! :P Lol! Jk! But seriously - thank you so much to everyone who reads and comments I hope you enjoy this rapid descent into madness! ;-) <3
> 
> Van Rellsing - babe, I'm glad I didn't see your face during the second half of this chapter's beta'ing. Also I need to talk to a priest stat, hook me up yo.

 

 

 

 

She’s still sleeping when he rises.

 

Curled up on her side, hair spilling across the sheets. He stands silently at the door for longer than he should. Taking in the fierce look on her face as she grumbles in her sleep, reaching across to where he should be and pulling the covers closer.

 

A dull ache settles beneath his ribs. The moment he steps outside of this door he must be the mask. Every shield locked tight, every memory buried. His humanity forced down into the coldest, darkest reach of his soul.

 

It is best, for now, that she remains a secret. At least until Skywalker is dealt with. He is certain now that it will be far wiser to reveal her _after_ he has proven his worth. Not before. When he can show his Master that she is a source of strength, not a distraction.

 

Beneath the logic of it something else stirs, a creeping fear that has settled in him almost without his notice. One he has never expected. There is a part of him, growing by the day, that doesn’t _want_ to take her before his Master. Not now, not ever. A hollow terror at the thought of the reaction that awaits them, afraid Snoke will not approve, that he will demand Ren do something he knows now he cannot do.

 

And worse still, is the part of him that doesn’t _care_ what the Supreme Leader thinks. The part that simply, _selfishly,_ just wants to keep her to himself. She is _his._ And the thought of his Master pulling and twisting at her, making her his servant as surely as he has made Ren his, makes his stomach turn.

 

He buries the thoughts. His Master has always shown him the true way, when the time is right he will understand. Ren has to believe that.

 

He’s lifting his mask, tension clawing at his shoulders as he turns to leave when she stirs.

 

“Ren?” She squints up at him in the dim light, running a hand through tousled hair as he freezes in the doorway. “What’re you doing?”

 

“Go back to sleep, Rey.” He murmurs as she frowns up at him. “It’s early still.”

 

She struggles to sit up instead, realization flickering in her expression. “You’re going to…” She pauses, biting her lip as she straightens up. “The base.”

 

He nods. They both know where he’s going.

 

Who he’s going to see.

 

“I’ll be back this evening.” He offers, almost hesitantly, before straightening himself up. “In time for your lesson.”

 

She snorts, determination rising in her eyes and she stands. Padding barefoot across the cold floor, his shirt hanging almost comically off her small frame as she crosses to his side. His heart stutters, unable to believe he has somehow managed to coax her into his life. That he could ever possibly deserve her affection.

 

She reaches up to tighten her little fists in his scarf, tugging him down to her level with a sleepy kind of ferocity.

 

“Lesson or not, I’ll be here when you get back.” She says it like she’s daring him to doubt her.

 

He nods, swallowing hard. Sinking down to kiss her, to stake his claim on her one last time before he leaves. Hands tightening against her hips, harder than he should, the mask in his hands pressing into her back as she melts into his touch. Clawing at him for more as he pours himself into it.

 

He has never been so tempted to defy his Master. To cast off his summons completely and stay here. Sweep Rey off her feet and carry her back into bed, keep them trapped in this perfect moment for as long as he can.

 

But reality beckons.

 

He pulls back, letting the shutters close. Seeing the disappoint in her eyes as he locks away his feelings until only the darkness remains, taking up his mask and covering his face.

 

He leaves her standing there. Small and fierce and lost in the middle of the room as the door seals shut behind him. Leaving his humanity with her.

 

-

 

“Something is troubling you, apprentice.” His Master’s voice rolls over him, low and echoing around the cavern as the holoprojection flickers above him. Dwarfing him as he kneels before the stone dais.

 

“No, Master.” He keeps his mind empty, a still black lake. Depthless and unreadable. “I am only impatient to find Skywalker and complete my work.”

 

A truth, not the whole truth but a truth never-the-less. His conflict with Skywalker still hangs heavily over him, and the freedom that awaits beyond it grows more tempting by the day.

 

“Hmm.” The voice shudders through him, a dragging noise of disapproval. It takes every inch of his control to keep his feelings beneath the surface as the Supreme Leader peers down at him with endless eyes. The weight of the universe sitting behind them, _burning_ into him. “I’m not so sure, there is _conflict_ in you, Ren.”

 

“No, Master.” His heart squeezes. Putting all of his determination into the words as he stares back into the void. “My will is true.”

 

“ _Don’t lie to me, boy._ ” Snoke’s voice becomes a roar, striking cold terror into the marrow of his bones. “Whatever is distracting you _eliminate_ it from your life. You have come too close to _fail_ me now.”

 

“Yes, Master.” He drops his head to his chest, panic rising in his throat. His eyes tightly closed as he fights to keep his thoughts still.

 

Snoke is powerful.

 

_Wise._

 

Ren is a fool to try and keep things from him.

 

He hears it all in his head. Creeping, familiar words that snip away at his composure. He pushes them down, fights to keep them from deafening him as they ring through his mind. Snoke is _salvation_ , the voice says, only Ren can’t quite grasp onto it anymore. For the longest time it has been true for him but now… now he knows he has felt true salvation. And it didn’t feel like _this_.

 

“I see I have to remind you of the true power of the Force.” His Master says, Ren flinching at the almost sad words. The sorry shake of his head as Snoke reaches across the depths of space for him. “For your _own_ good.”

 

Ren barely has time to brace himself before it strikes.

 

The pain is instant. A sick inversion of his powers as Snoke twists his own mind against him, forcing him down onto his hands. A stabbing, churning throb in his skull as he bites his teeth against it.

 

Snoke forces his way in easily, the power roaring through the universe into the hollow place he has carved into Ren’s mind over the years. Only now… the link between them is frayed. He can feel it, even through the acid that’s pulsing in his skull. The bond between them has fractures, fault lines. And beneath it there is something stronger. A cord of steel that runs the length of his spine, something warm and safe that he must guard.

 

Something worth enduring this.

 

Snoke roars, rearing up in his seat and the pain redoubles.

 

The darkness flares, tar-like and toxic as Ren fingers claw at the stone. Bloody beneath his gloves as he struggles for purchase against it. The agony swallows up every shadowed place, reminding him how _worthless_ he is. Entirely _unworthy_ of Snoke’s notice _._ How much he _deserves_ this pain. Every second of it. He keeps things from his Master. He is _weak._

 

The thoughts grow and roar, splintering through his mind as tears burn behind his eyes. The tendons in his jaw pop, determined to hold in the cries until all he can taste is blood and bile and _fear_.

 

And yet still he keeps his mind locked. It no longer matters how worthless he is, he has something more important to protect then his own weak flesh. And he will. He gives into the pain, letting it obliterate every thought. Focusing only on the _hurt_ and nothing else. Accepting his punishment as a good apprentice should.

 

Then, so suddenly it makes him whimper, the power is gone. His mind is empty again.

 

Hollow.

 

Blood dripping from his nose onto the floor.

 

“Do you understand now, Ren?” Snoke’s voice is a balm as he reaches down as if to touch him. It sickens him even as he shudders beneath it, soothing his pain. A dog at his Master’s feet. “It gives me no pleasure to remind you like this. But you are so _close_ now, you must not give into the weakness.”

 

“Yes, Master.” He nods. The darkness rushing in to fill the emptiness in his mind in Snoke’s wake, both familiar and strange to him now. He let’s it. Filling himself up with the comforting blackness until he doesn’t have to be himself anymore, he doesn’t have to feel the torment of his own emotions _._ His voice is steady as he rises “I will not fail you again.”

 

“Good.” Snoke’s pleasure spills through his mind as he rises. Cloying and sickly. “Now go. Do what must be done.”

 

-

 

She can’t sleep after he leaves.

 

It feels wrong somehow, to lie there without him in the rapidly cooling sheets. She rises instead, stretching through her morning forms. Body working on instinct as she tries to keep her mind balanced. Tries to keep her thoughts from straying to the dark creature Ren has gone to pay tribute too.

 

_The Supreme Leader._

 

The cloaked, shadowed being Ren still calls Master. The thought of him is enough to make her shudder, bringing up echoes of images she’s long since buried. Flashes of a vision she’s relegated to her subconscious. She tries to keep her mind blank, to push the monstrous form from her thoughts. Tries to forget the pale-faced look her fellow Technician’s get whenever he’s mentioned.

 

Ren trusts this man… this… _thing._

 

He has submitted himself to Snoke for far longer than she has known him, putting himself fully into his hands. No matter how unfathomable she might find it she must accept that, for now at least, this is something he needs to do.

 

And yet she can't keep the fear far from her thoughts.

 

Her work day passes in a blur, unable to focus on anything for too long. Moving on autopilot as a headache starts to grow behind her eyes, a dull throbbing pain that increases as the hours drag on. Her anxiety running wild in his absence.

 

The pain suddenly turns stabbing as she breaks for lunch. Cutting through her skull, setting her teeth on edge as she fights against it. Swallowing a couple of meds as it retreats and burying the feeling. Trying to shrug off the notion that he’s hurt somehow. Somewhere she can’t reach him.

 

It’s ridiculous, he is Snoke’s _apprentice,_ he is surely safe there, with him, no matter how much of a demon he may seem to her. Her panic is unfounded, her headache a symptom of an over anxious mind. A childish reaction to being left alone that she should squash. She should be _stronger_ than this. Her fingers twitch as she fights down the irrational urge to run down to the hangar, to commandeer the first ship she sees and hunt him down.

 

_Keep him safe._

 

She thanks every god she’s ever heard of when her shift finally ends. Hurrying back to his quarters to wait, the familiar hush of his domain soothing her frazzled nerves just a little. She still runs her drills with a staff instead of a saber though, unfocused and unwilling to risk losing an arm as she takes her frustration out in wide swings.

 

Time seems to have slowed down. Creeping by as she abandons the practice, more bruised than she’d admit by her lack of focus. He said he’d be back in time for her lesson but it’s getting late. She has to fight to keep her mind to herself, he has warned her not to reach out for him when he visits Snoke. She takes to pacing the room instead. Restless as her eyes flicker back to the door time and time again, her shields kept low as she sweeps the ship for any sign of him.

 

She swears she can feel the exact moment his shuttle lands, nails digging into her palm as she feels the familiar distant spark of his power. Tracing the dull pulse of it as he enters the Finalizer, so tightly shielded she can barely hold onto it.

 

Her sigh of relief is almost embarrassingly loud when the door finally opens, the sight of his tall, black form making her heart leap in her chest. He’s back, he’s here, he’s _safe._ She can stop behaving like a needy child and breathe again.

 

“Ren.” She moves to greet him automatically, “Did you-”

 

The question dies on her lips as she takes in the rigid set of his shoulders, the stiff movement of his arms as he releases his mask. Dragging it free and setting it aside as the door closes behind him.

 

She almost doesn’t recognize the man it reveals.

 

Dead eyed and distant. A figure of darkness strung so tightly she’s suddenly terrified one sudden movement might snap him like a band. Might release the pain, the self-loathing she can feel beneath the still surface of his composure. Her breath leaves her in a gasp as he looks blankly at her.

 

“What… What happened?”

 

“Nothing.” His voice is empty, mind suddenly cut off from her as she reaches for it. A pale faced stranger in the room as he unclips his belt, going through the motions of removing his surcoat. The gloves stick when he pulls at them and something flickers in his face. He tugs them sharply away to reveal broken, blood-stained fingernails beneath. Turning away from her to wash them clean.

 

Realization goes through her like an ice cold knife as she stands gaping in his wake. The pieces clicking together in her head, physical evidence of her worst fears. It all fits together, his face, his eyes. Her headache, the strange second hand pain that has plagued her. The _fear._

 

She swallows hard.

 

_Snoke did this._

 

He has _hurt_ Ren.

 

A rage unlike any she‘s never known takes hold of her. Blistering through her as her heart hammers in her chest. She sees the face from her vision again, _Snoke,_ lopsided and monstrous. Imagines herself digging her fingers into the fissures in his skull and tearing him apart. Smashing his face into the stone over and over until all that’s left is blood and pulp and bad memories. To make him pay for ever daring to do this to Ren.

 

_She could kill him._

 

The darkness leaves her breathless, struggling to control it as he comes back into the room.

 

“Snoke did this to you.” She speaks the words out loud, ground out through clenched teeth as her hands squeeze into fists at her side. It takes everything she had not to storm out of the room. Not to wrap her arms around Ren and never let go.

 

He doesn’t react, unfastening the neck of his tunic with an infuriating calm.

 

“He did what was necessary.” He says at last, shoulders squared as he looks at her with those still, hollow eyes. “He is my Master.”

 

She stumbles back, unable to keep from flinching as the words strike into her, sharper than he could have possibly intended them. Her spine stiffening as she forces herself to meet his gaze, daring him to look away as she seizes one of his hands. Holding it up between them, all bruised fingers and broken nails, still damp from the sink. The evidence of something she’s scared to even imagine.

 

“Whatever he did to you, whatever did... _this_. You’d do that to me?” She asks quietly, unblinking. “ _Hurt_ me? If it was necessary?”

 

-

 

Something stirs within him, cutting through the darkness.

 

His feelings rise through the cold stillness he’s filled himself with in Snoke’s absence. A spark of anger. Growing and flaring as he meets her wide, accusing eyes. Rage clenching in his veins even as her gentle grip weakens his resolve. How could she ask him that? How could she even _think_ that of him?

 

He could never hurt her.

 

_Never._

 

She’s his _apprentice,_ she’s…

 

The thought hits him hard, twisting in his stomach as he realizes what she means. Tearing his hand away and turning from her. “This is different.”

 

“ _How?_ ” She asks, her anger, her incredulity beating against his shields. His grip on them slipping and straining beneath the sudden wave of feelings as she shadows his footsteps.

 

“ _Because it is._ ” He turns back to her, the rage rising sharply again. He welcomes it, it keeps him from becoming lost in the _other_ emotions. The fear he can feel beneath the the surface of his own mind as he whirls around to face her, the despair and desperation. His voice rising as he scowls down at her. “You don’t _understand._ I’m _weak_ … without control I can’t accomplish _anything.”_

 

She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t back down.

 

“You’re not _weak,_ Ren.” She says, face heating as she presses into his space, glaring up at him. “You’re _human.”_ Her voice softens, ever so slightly, something hurt flashing in her eyes. “You don’t deserve this.”

 

There’s no pity in her voice. Only _understanding._ An empathy that terrifies him as he feels the weight of her emotions beating against his own. Earnest and strong.

 

She _believes_ what she’s saying.

 

It’s too much.

 

She’s wrong, he knows it. He’s always known his own weakness. But he no longer cares.

 

It’s enough that she believes he’s worth something. That _someone_ does.

 

The last vestiges of the darkness he’s shielded himself in shatter beneath her eyes. Leaving him bleeding from within as he surges down, kissing her almost angrily. _Violently._ Unable to tame the sudden whiplash of desire that rages through him.

 

He needs her so much it _hurts._

 

She freezes, a split second of hesitation, of shock, but then she’s responding in kind. Her hands scrabbling against his shoulders as she drags herself closer. Mouth moving against his as a desperate little mewl escapes her. Searing through him and leaving fire in it’s wake.

 

He draws back, just for a moment, breathing hard as he fights to keep himself from touching her. Desire turning painful as he holds himself back, silently seeking her permission before he pushes any further.

 

In the lights she looks almost celestial. Her pupils blown wide with lust as she gazes at him, she reaches up. A fragile touch that nearly breaks him as she nods, fingers threading through his hair. Then her hand tightens and she’s pulling him down to her, hard, kissing him urgently.

 

He lets the desperation take over. Hands shaking as he catches at her clothes, pulling them aside. Not caring that it reawakens the bruises covering his fingers, almost welcoming the pain. More animal than man as he presses his mouth, his teeth, to every inch of skin he uncovers. Tearing the jumpsuit from her waist, barely giving her a chance to kick out of it before he seizes hold of her again, already so hard he can barely stand. Fingers grasping at her, victory stirring in him as her breath hitches wildly. Gasping against him as he paws at her. Scrabbling desperately at his clothing as he closes his teeth against the sensitive flesh of her throat.

 

_His._

 

She reaches for him, the need burning in her eyes. He hears himself growl, catching at her wrists. Trapping them behind her body as he presses into her space. Not letting her touch him as he watches her pulse jumping under the red mark he’s left on her neck. Leaning in again. Slowly. Predatorily. Needing to be in control as he catches her in a long, lingering kiss that has her arching up on her tip toes against him. A noise of pleasure rumbling through his chest as she struggles against his hold.

 

“Ren - please.” She gasps as he pulls back long enough to draw air. Her face flushed with embarrassment, _desire_. “Let me-”

 

“Not yet.” He growls against her mouth, even as her words send warmth sparking through him. Dropping her wrists just long enough to catch her around the waist. Lifting her easily and pinning her beneath him in the centre of the bed. “Not yet.”

 

He fastens his hands around her wrists again as she reaches for his waist, muscles jerking in anticipation as he draws them up above her head. She lets him, breathless and squirming beneath him as he fastens his powers around them. “ _Stay.”_

 

She can’t touch him, not now. One brush of her fingers and he’ll fall apart completely. So desperate for her he can barely stand it. He draws back instead.

 

“Tell me you want this, Rey.” He says, half-mad with need as he lowers his shields to her. One word from her, one _look_ and he’ll leave. Release her in an instant and tear himself away.

 

He won’t take anything she’s not willing to give, no matter how desperately he needs it.

 

She sucks in a deep breath. Her face burning, a desperate, embarrassed glare narrowing her eyes as she refuses to look away.

 

“I want this.” She says, and he feels her own shields fall away. His skin boiling beneath the onslaught of her desire, her irritation at him for making her say it. “Maker, _fuck._ I want this.”

 

“One word.” He says, “One word and I’ll stop.”

 

She nods.

 

Her permission shudders through him. He re-tightens his grip, powers winding around her wrists as he holds her in place. Feeling her stretching, testing the restraint as he moves above her, stripping himself of the last of his clothes before returning to her. Tasting the salt of her skin as he slowly, deliberately, kisses his way down her body. Paying tribute to every inch of her he can reach, revelling into the anticipation he can feel thrumming through her. Her pleasure rolling through him in hot waves as he staves off his own desire in favour of stoking hers.

 

Her willing submission beats in his chest with the sound of his own heart. Burning every other thought from him.

 

He pulls back for one long, lingering moment as she squirms beneath him. Seeing the the _fire_ in her eyes. Delicious little keening sounds escaping her throat as presses his lips to the unbearable softness of her innermost thigh. Pale in comparison to the sun-kissed skin of her arms, her calves.  

 

He holds her there, trapped and desperate for a second before pressing closer, where he knows she needs him most. Feeling her break beneath him, completely under his control.

 

-

 

She can’t stop the sound escapes her throat, a harsh gasp as he presses his mouth against her. Hot and wet and _wicked._ Hips bucking as she struggles against this new onslaught of pleasure, it’s almost unbearable _._ _Obscene._ The way he laps at her, burning her up from the inside with the teasing of his tongue.

 

She writhes and gasps against it, his hands securing her hips as surely as the grip of his powers around her wrists. A guilty thrill flushing through her at being so utterly out of control for once. She’s never let anyone possess her like this, not even him. Always making a show at least of her independence. But now… now she revels in it. Taught and helpless beneath his touch. Not having to think, to fight it.

 

Giving herself up to him entirely, her body. Her _trust._

 

She doesn’t want to be in control any more.

 

She just wants to _feel._

 

And he is more than willing to help with that.

 

His mouth fastens around her as if on command. Every nerve turning electric under the sudden harsh pressure, a stark contrast to the ungodly soft brush of his hair against her thighs. She hears herself shouting as he draws her into a rough, heady climax. Falling over the edge before she can even register it building. Her release scalding through her as she struggles against her bonds. To push him away, to force him nearer.

 

He doesn't stop though. Her cries seeming to drive him on as he redoubles his efforts, back arching hard as his teeth graze over her tender flesh. The pleasure teetering on the edge of pain as, before she has time collect herself from the last, he's pulling her over the edge again.

 

He tortures her with it. Sweat running in rivulets over her tensed muscles, gasping and begging as he undoes her completely. Driving everything from her head, every worry, every fear.

 

There’s only this, here, _him._

 

Her face is burning by the time he's done, trembling with harsh aftershocks of pleasure as she sinks back into the sheets. His mouth almost obscenely slick and swollen as he draws himself up over her, fingers replacing his tongue as he traces deceptively delicate patterns across her over-sensitive sex.

 

“We’re not done yet.” He murmurs into her ear, voice rough and low, scraping over her raw nerve endings as he presses the full weight of his need against her entrance.

 

She can’t keep from whimpering as he sinks himself into her. Letting the raw feeling of it roll over her. Stretching and scalding her. Painfully intense as he hooks her legs up around his hips, her muscles trembling, no longer entirely her own.

 

There’s something almost mad in his eyes as he watches her. Eyes locked into hers as the thread of desire stretching between them begins to tighten again. Losing herself in the black of his pupils.

 

“You’re mine.” He murmurs, over and over again. Wordless noises of agreement tearing from her ruined throat as he claims her.

 

She is.

 

She can’t deny it any more, not to herself, not to him.

 

She’s his and he’s hers and she doesn’t think she could give this up for _anything._

 

-

 

When he gives himself permission to feel it’s almost too much for him.

 

She’s so _willing_ beneath him. Her breath coming in sharp little gasps as she bucks and breaks underneath his touch. It sharpens the desire in him into something almost unbearable as he dedicates himself to destroying her again. To tame her completely with his touch, prove his mastery over her, over himself. Each calculated brush and bite designed to mark her, to claim her as he whispers into her ear.

 

The feel of her, tight and wet and glorious around him snaps the last few threads of his self control as he possesses her body. She’s here, she’s _his._ Entirely beneath his control as he burns away the memory of the pain, the self-loathing in each ragged thrust.

 

He lets himself go. Giving into the moment entirely. Let’s his world narrow down to the flashing hazel of her eyes, the heat of her body beneath him. There is no Snoke, no destiny, only _her._ Her name a prayer on his lips, shaking with desperation as he sinks himself inside of her again and again, hips driving in time with the thundering in his chest as he casts the world aside. He doesn’t even realize his grip on her wrists has broken until he feels her hands in his hair, her legs clenched tightly around his hips as she gasps beneath him.

 

It’s too much, the sensations tightening sharply within him. A white hot rush of electricity that flexes taught inside of him as he buries himself in her. Heart stopping dead in his chest as it spills out of him, hearing his own voice shouting through the fog of pleasure. Feeling himself tear apart at the seams above her.

 

The man who tumbles down beside her in the sheets, shaking and spent, is not the same as the one who started this. Unable to do more than trap her in his arms again, lying panting at her side as her fingers thread through his hair. She’s murmuring quiet little nothings as her hands dance soothingly across his scalp.

 

“I’m here.” She’s whispering against his skin, voice catching softly. Ragged and breathless still. “You’re safe.”

 

A fractured little sob escapes his throat as he buries his face in her neck. Any pretense of control disintegrating as he lets himself give into the torment that’s raged inside of him for longer than he can remember. Feeling everything he’s been repressing in one unstoppable wave. Clutching onto her like a lifeline as her gentle benediction rolls over him. Her touch soothing it all always until only the exhaustion remains.

 

Tomorrow he can be himself again. He can brace the barriers around his mind, his heart, and reassert his strength. Claim his conviction and dedicate himself to his cause.

 

Remind her that they are master and apprentice still.

 

But right now he doesn’t have to.

 

Right now she’s his home.

  



	28. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To her it seems inconsequential. To him it's destiny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (( Hot Damn(eron) guys! Thank you so much for the feedback on the last chapter! I cannot tell you how much I appreciated it - gah it literally made my week and I can never thank you enough for taking the time to comment! <3  
> \--guessI'mnottheonlyoneintokinkycryingmess!Renthoughayyyyeeee?--
> 
> Thanks as always to Dwayne 'The Rell' Johnson for her mighty fic wrestling skills. ))

 

They don't mention the trip to Starkiller the next day.

 

Or in the days that follow it.

 

Although Rey can still feel it circling at the edge of her consciousness, like steelpeckers in the desert sky. A worrying omen. Her stomach squeezes painfully at the memory of hot tears soaking into her neck, trembling arms clawing her closer.

 

She cannot forgive Snoke for this.

 

But she can't mention him either. One look at Ren the morning after convinces her of that, the hurt now buried beneath the surface of his eyes. Looking at her warily, almost... pleading. _Needing_ things to be normal again.

 

So she keeps her mouth shut, even as she feels the turmoil inside him flicker and roil. The sick tug of war going on in his head over his allegiances. It weighs him down, dragging at his shoulders, tightening his brow, and no matter how much she wants to fix it for him, to grab hold of him and shout _this is the right path, this! Us! Not Snoke!_ she can only watch.

 

If she tells him what she thinks, what she believes, exactly _how_ much she wants to destroy his master, she will only cause him more pain. And she can’t do that right now.

 

She won’t force him to choose and risk driving him further into the darkness.

 

No. This is a conclusion he must make himself.

 

And in the meantime she’s not going anywhere.

 

He no longer needs to ask her if she’ll stay when her contract runs out, eighteen days and counting, there’s no other option. For better or worse he’s changed her, or maybe she’s changed herself. All she knows is it’s awakened parts of her that have long been dormant. She’s found strength in the anger she’d always kept buried. Found hope in the unlikeliest of places.

 

For the first time in her life she’s entertaining the idea that perhaps she’s not meant to be alone in the universe after all. And it’s not her family that’s caused it. The only ones she’d ever thought capable of giving her this feeling… this _belonging._ It’s _him._ And strangely it makes it better. If her family ever had come back for her, which she knows now they wouldn't, it would have been out of _duty._ A dim memory of blood, an abandoned child. They wouldn’t _know_ her.

 

Not like he does.

 

He has _chosen_ her. Seen her for all her flaws, her hope and anguish, dirty nails and bright smiles, and wanted her because of it. Not despite it.

 

And she in her turn has chosen him. She might not have set out to, not in the start, but now she can’t imagine any other way. He pulls at her in a way no other person ever has and, as long as she can keep herself, she’s not giving up him either. No matter what he’s done. What she’s done.

 

But they still have hurdles in front of them.

 

And not just Snoke.

 

“Let me help you.” Rey plants her hands on her hips. It’s the third afternoon she’s come in after her shift to find him like this, hunched over nav-charts and holoprojections. Pouring over scraps of data and reports.

 

She’s had enough of it.

 

Skywalker, the map, it’s begun to _consume_ him. His obsession with fulfilling his destiny winding his muscles tighter and tighter with every passing day. He drowns out his inner-turmoil with it, the search drawing him away from her as she watches the dark smudges grow beneath his eyes. Becoming familiar with the new pallor that sinks his cheeks. She might not agree with his methods, with his mission, but she has come to realize with a horrifying clarity _exactly_ what she’d do to avenge someone she cared about.

 

What she’d do to Snoke if she was ever given the chance.

 

She can’t begrudge Ren for wanting to do the same, for wanting justice against the man who had killed his grandfather. Who had splintered his family. No matter who he was. Ren doesn’t talk about it, not ever, but she can _feel_ how important this is to him. How much of his future hangs on completing this task.

 

All she can do is try to help, and pray, when the moment comes, that the man she knows will be stronger than the darkness. That maybe through this he can find peace. Move beyond these steel walls and into a life that could just be _theirs._ Perhaps it’s stupid. A selfish, _childish_ hope.

 

But she clings to it anyway.

 

“What did you say?” He glances around, joints cracking loudly in the still air and making her wince.

 

“Let me help you.” She repeats, head held high as she gestures to the datapanel. “Let me help find this map. Skywalker.”

 

He gives her an uncertain, assessing look and for a minute she thinks he’s going to refuse. To brush her off like he usually does and set her back to her lessons. Instead his shoulders slump, nodding once.

 

Her pulse jumps, a warm flash of victory sparking through her chest as she crosses to his side. Leaning automatically into him as he wraps his arm around her waist, a familiar little act of intimacy that makes her heart squeeze.

 

“I’m so close.” He says, the frustration spilling out in his words as he rakes his hair out of his eyes. “I can _feel_ it. I’m missing something important.”

 

“Tell me.” She leans over the panel, dozens of programs running across the cluttered screen. Searching cryptchannels and databases. An incomprehensible world of information whirring past her eyes.

 

“The chart, it’s in the hands of…” his nose wrinkles, the words picking up the faintly disgusted tone of voice she’s come to associate with the mysterious holder of the map. “An old explorer, a member of the _‘Church of the Force.’_ ” His mouth thins as he pulls up a star chart in the corner of the screen. “He’s somewhere in the wastes of the western reaches, but nowhere I’ve searched so far has shown any trace of him.”

 

“The Church of the Force.” She repeats with a _hmm_ as she scans the busy display, mind flickering back into the past at the words.

 

“It’s a cult of old fools.” She can hear the sneer as he says it, waving a hand dismissively. “They have no concept of _real_ power.”

 

“Oh I know who they are,” Reaching across the screen she swipes up the channels running in the corner and scans their data. “There were some who lived in a sacred village across the Kelvin Ravine, back on Jakku. Mostly harmless, I delivered messages there a few times from Plutt.” She shivers at the names and faces of people she’s relegated to bad memories. Talking distractedly as she pulls up the scanner running in the corner. “Old Man Tekka was alright though, he used to give me cold spinebarrel tea sometimes.”

 

The hand on her waist tightens, his grip becoming hard enough to bruise as he tenses at her side. She lets out a pained yelp, head shooting round to frown at him. “Okay ow! What was that f-”

 

He doesn’t let her finish, hands reaching to brace against her shoulders as he jerks her round to face him properly. A sharp sudden movement that leaves her gaping as he searches her gaze with a laser-sharp intensity.

 

“Say that again.” His voice is low, strangely ragged.

 

“I… I said he used to give me tea sometimes...” She repeats stupidly, brow furrowing in confusion at the sudden strange turn in his behaviour. Unable to comprehend the wave of anticipation suddenly crashing against her shields as she frowns up at him. “It tasted disgusting but it was good for hydration. I mean Lor San never exactly-” His hands seize again. Another painful clench that has her scowling at him, irritation rising underneath the confusion. “Seriously, stop tha _-_ ”

 

“ _Lor San Tekka_.” He says. Eyes burning into her as if he’s trying to read her soul, leaving her breathless. Off-kilter. “You know him?”

 

“Yeah, sure.” She shakes her head, “I knew him. Although I don’t see what that...” The words dry in her throat, suddenly struggling to breathe as she meets his gaze head on. “Wait... how do  _you_ know… ?”

 

He doesn’t answer her, whirling on his heel instead. Lightsaber suddenly burning in his hand as the sound of twisting metal rents the air. Heart squeezing painfully in her chest as a desperate wave of frustration scalds through her, her shields melting beneath the onslaught of his emotions as surely as the durasteel beneath his blade.

 

-

 

The self loathing rises, whip fast and blinding, a true darkness that floods through his ribs as he rains destruction on the walls. Scarring his rage into the cold, dull metal. Molton lines of despair as he fights to excise it from himself. Sparks burning into him with the acrid scent.

 

She shouldn’t have to see him like this, shouldn’t have to feel his anger but he can’t contain it. All he can do is slash and stab and _hate_ himself for his own stupidity.

 

_He is a fool._

 

She has… she has _known_ the whole time, since the very start. Months have passed with the information sitting _right there._ If he’d only thought to ask. If he’d only swallowed his fucking pride and _talked to her_ , put aside his disdain for the man, the dismissal of her past and shared _everything_ with her.

 

_Unforgivable._

 

“ _Ren."_ The shout cuts through the twisted screech of metal, the pounding of his blood in his ears as he turns to face her. Shaking as he stares at her through blurred eyes. Struggling to focus on her as the anger crashes through him again and again until he’s weak with it. “What are you _doing?"_

 

She hesitates, then marches forward. He can see the way she swallows hard, the way her fingers tremble as she snatches the saber from his hand. He tenses at her sudden proximity, almost ready to lash out, to fight back, to snarl and scream and let out all the blistering anger inside of himself, but it dissipates under the fear in her eyes.

 

The rage drains, guilt rushing in in it’s wake and leaving him cold. Shaken and suddenly horrified at himself as she moves away from him. He forces himself not to follow, not to step into her space with her emotions still fluttering beneath his mind. She is the one person in the universe who should _never_ have to be afraid of him.

 

“You’re not the one who has to fix that wall.” She says at last, quietly, as she sets the hilt down on the table. He sees her shoulders hitch, sucking in a deep, silent breath before she turns back to him.

 

“I have wasted so much time.” He says when she finally meets his gaze, the words quiet, strangled. Pathetic even to himself.

 

She moves back towards him. Careful, calculated little steps. Like he’s a wild animal.

 

The shame deepens.

 

He watches as she untangles what he’s saying, seeing the understanding widening her eyes as the pieces click into place.

 

“So this map… you think _Tekka_ has it?” Her voice is hushed, uncertain as she falters. Stopping in front of him. “That it’s been on _Jakku_ this whole time?”

 

“Yes.” He takes a harsh breath, forcing himself to unclench his fists. Dropping his shoulders and trying to look non-threatening. Heart racing in his throat as he holds still and prays she’ll come back to him.

 

The room is perfectly still for one, long endless moment.

 

Then she’s _laughing._

 

A silly little giggle that seems to surprise her as much as it surprises him. She slaps a hand to her mouth, eyes wide at the outburst.

  
“Sorry - it’s just...” The words are half-choked with suppressed laughter, a stunned, almost exasperated smile stretching her mouth. “So completely _ridiculous._ All this time and… _Ri’ia,_ of all the people in the whole of the galaxy-”

 

She's right. Out of all the people in the entire universe _she’s_ the one who has led him to the means of fulfilling his Grandfather’s legacy.

 

She is his _destiny._

 

He doesn’t know how to react. Her shocked humour brushing at his damaged shields as he takes a careful step towards her. Relief stunning him as she doesn’t back away. As she lets him brush the hair from her face and she _beams_ at him.

 

“How utterly, utterly ridiculous.” She says with a little shake of her head and he finds himself nodding in agreement.

 

And then it hits him.

 

He _knows_ where Tekka is.

 

Where the map is.

 

His heart seizes as the information sinks in. The sacred village on Jakku, her home planet. He can find Skywalker.

 

He can _end_ this.

 

The thought catches in his chest, a wave of tremulous, terrifying anticipation rising in him as he raises his eyes to hers. Seeing the realization snap into place as she meets his gaze. So beautiful he can barely stand it.

 

But there will be time enough to admire her later, and he plans to admire her at length. To praise her completely for this fortuitous knowledge, for saving him in yet _another_ way. It must wait though, right now there is work to be done.

 

“I have to activate the protocol, deploy the troops.” He says, snapping to attention as reality hits. He has lost enough time already, mind racing ahead. Halfway to the data panel before she stops him in his tracks, her small hand catching tightly at his arm.

 

“Wait-” She says as he glances back. Impatience now flickering behind his anticipation as something indecisive plays across her face. The expression settles hard behind her eyes and she tips her head up proudly. “Let me do it.”

 

“What?” His brow furrows, confusion rising as he takes in her fierce expression.

 

“Don’t send the stormtroopers.” She says, shoulders squared and sturdy as she stands before him. “Take me instead. Let me do this. I _know_ this man, I can get the map from him without anyone else getting involved.”

 

He falters. The idea is appealing, seeing her flex her strength like this… for him. It warms through his chest, and the thought of not involving Hux or Phasma or any of the other subordinates is more than enticing. To appear, map in hand, having out thought all of their petty bureaucracies and military moves would be welcome indeed.

 

Only… this is _it._ This is the moment he has been waiting for for months… _years,_  he cannot afford to misstep now. And if she does this and fails…

 

-

 

Rey sees him hesitate.

 

She firms her resolve. Planting her feet as her heart beats a mile a minute as she waits for his response.

 

Her knee-jerk elation at his excitement has faded, washed away by the bitter taste of reality as the consequences present themselves to her. If he does this, summons the full might of the military and descends on the village en masse she can only imagine the devastation that will follow. The First Order is not well liked on Jakku, especially not by the villagers of Tuanal. She doubts Tekka would hand the map over to them willingly and if he doesn’t… if they strike back…

 

It could be a _massacre._

 

If Ren trusts her though, if he lets her do this, she’s confident she can convince the old man to give her the map. That she can save the village _and_ help Ren in the same breath. To do this the _right_ way.

  
“Rey…” He looks at her, one of those true, deep looks that has her heart catching in her ribs as he peers into the darkest corners of her mind. “Are you certain this is something you want to do?” His words are measured, the serious weight of the situation in them as he gently takes her arm. As different as day to the darkness he’d been consumed with before, uncertain and _caring._ “Are you prepared for what you might have to do if he _doesn’t_ hand over the map? I won’t ask this of you if you’re not ready.”

 

She swallows hard.

 

Lately she has realized exactly what she will do for him. For _them._ If finding Skywalker can put this darkness to rest, if getting justice for his Grandfather will give him peace. She’ll do what she has to. _Whatever_ she has to. She knows it even as her stomach twists uncomfortably at the thought.

 

“I may not… I may not always agree with the way you do things,” She starts, willing him to understand as she stares back into him. The importance of the moment dragging at her shoulders as she struggles to keep her spine from wilting beneath his gaze. “But I know what this means to you. And... “ She takes a deep breath, “I know now what I would do to get justice for someone I… someone I cared about. Let me do this for you. Please.”

 

There's a miniscule change in his face, she sees it in the way his dark eyes fly open just a fraction. The slight catch of his breath as he watches her, her face heating under the intensity of his gaze.

 

He nods, just once. Leaning in and kissing her. Sweetness and burning at the same time, leaving her breathless. A silent confirmation of all her hopes, every secret wish she can barely allow herself. Curling her toes in her boots, warmth and passion and… and… _feeling._

 

Then he’s pulling back, straightening his tunic almost self-consciously and nodding to the cupboard where she keeps her _other_ uniform. The clothes of his apprentice. The ones she hasn’t worn since the forest.

 

“Ready yourself then, we will leave at once.”

 

 


	29. Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The place where past and future meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Hey gang! Thank you so much for sticking with me on this! I really hope you enjoy this chapter (because holy crap I've been dreading it ^^; hehe) Annnnd special thanks as always to the anyone who has/will/might leave a comment, you genuinely make this lowly fic writer's LIFE! I hope you all find $10 in the road and get to pet a baby animal today!
> 
> Rell-tree fruitpastels, you are a life saver, thank you for helping me wrangle the Ren and listening to me whine AT LENGTH without complaint. You are delicious and nutritious.))

 

 

 

She’s already waiting in the pilot’s seat when he boards the shuttle. Jumpsuit folded neatly on top of her bag in the back seat, fingers dancing over the controls as she plots their course.

 

He watches her from the doorway for a moment, his fear rushing out in sharp exhale as he takes her in.

 

The graceful line of her neck, the concentrated furrow of her brow as she inputs the coordinates. Her energy is electric, dancing over his tightly strung nerves as he crosses to the seat beside her and signals the launch. She’s overflowing with it. Waves of anxiety, _anticipation_ and, beneath it all, the solid steel of her determination _._

 

It surges up from behind her shields and spills into his own feelings. Catching hard and fast behind his ribs, a pulsing vortex of emotions he can’t even begin to put names too. He’s been waiting for this for so long, so close now he can barely believe this is real.

 

That this is happening.

 

He has the sudden overwhelming need to tell her _exactly_ how much this means to him. All of it. _Her._ But he’s afraid that if he starts he won’t be able to stop, that the feelings she’s awoken in him as the months have passed will come spilling out in a flood and drown them both. Washing away their purpose.

 

“Are you sure you’re ready?” He asks instead as the engines thrum to life beneath them, although in truth the question is aimed more at himself than at her now.

 

“Yes.”

 

He nods, letting the confirmation bolster his resolve, pushing his emotions down the way he’s always done. Channelling the feelings into something usable, a facade of composure. Another mask. He startles as she reaches out, wrapping a small hand around his. Squeezing just once before returning to her task.

 

Something in her touch steadies him, even as she wordlessly goes back to manning the controls. There will be no auto-nav today clearly. The little gesture lets him breathe easier, lets him store the mess of his emotions away without sealing his humanity with them.

 

It lets him focus.

 

One way or another by nightfall this will be done.

 

-

 

They don’t speak again until they land, Jakku rushing up before her like a bad memory.

 

The sight of the endless burning sand is almost too much for her, the panic she thought she’d shaken coming back with a vengeance. Seizing her ribs in a vice grip. For a moment she can’t think through it, can’t see beyond the desolation.

 

She can’t shake the feeling that if she sets foot out there she’ll never be able to leave again.

 

Then she catches sight of him in the corner of her eye, stiff-shouldered but still. _Real._ Ren’s been waiting for this moment for longer than she dares imagine, dedicated so much of himself to it. And now, at the final hurdle, he’s _trusting_ her to do this.

 

Her heart squeezes.

 

The least she can do is to trust herself.

 

The stabilizers kick in, the ship settling into the dunes. She’s taken them in low, a stealth landing out of the sight from the village, behind the ridge of yellow rock that separates it from the dunes. It’ll be a bit of a trek but it’s worth it to avoid any unnecessary panic. She pulls herself to her feet, centering herself as he rises beside her, shadowing her footsteps.

 

“You should…” She swallows hard as the ramp drops in front of them, editing her words as she surveys the landscape. “It might be best if you wait here, for now. The villagers of Tuanul are wary of strangers and you’re not exactly...” He raises an eyebrow a fraction of an inch and she finds herself blushing. “You make an impression.”

 

Her mouth twitches, trying to glare at him. Trying to cling to this last, tense moment of normalcy between them before she has to go out there and face reality. Before she has to step back into her nightmares.

 

“If you need me, Rey.” The words are suddenly serious, his hands wrapping around her shoulders, warming her through with his touch. _Safe._ “If _anything_ happens, I’ll be there.”

 

She tucks her fingers into the folds of his scarf, smoothing them down as his words flow through her. Suddenly the prospect of going out there isn’t so crushing anymore, the knee-jerk fear of being abandoned again falling away beneath the power in his eyes.

 

Looking up she struggles to find the words. _I won’t fail you._ She wants to say. _I can’t remember my life before you. I trust you. I..._

 

Instead she just nods.

 

“I know.”

 

He swallows hard and lets her go when she pulls away, she can feel his eyes burning into her as she raises her hood. Checking her belt one more time, lightsaber, canteen, communicator, before taking the first step out into the heat.

 

Something stops her at the bottom of the ramp, a sudden throb in her chest that has her turning back quickly. He’s two steps behind her, ready and waiting to sweep her up into one last, lingering kiss. It’s clumsy, _desperate._ She pushes as much of herself as she can into the moment, suddenly greedy for this last bit of contact. For this reassurance, this memory.

 

She breaks it, panting hard as she turns sharply away. Tearing herself from his touch and marching into the oppressive heat of the desert, not looking back until she’s past the line of jagged rocks and the ship is out of sight.

 

There’s a new, quiet little fear tugging at the corner of her mind, fingers brushing her bruised lips as she trudges through the sand. A worry that the kiss felt far too much like goodbye.

 

-

 

By the time she reaches the village she’s sweating up a storm.

 

She’d forgotten how hot it is on Jakku. The sun’s still new in the sky but the dry heat cuts through her all the same, coating her like the fine layer of sand that lifts from the dunes. She’s spent too long away, the chill of space has become second nature to her, reminding her again how poor a choice black clothing is in the desert.

 

Tuanul looks exactly as she remembers. The same squat sandstone dwellings in a roughly circular pattern, the ground punctured every few meters with the ugly spiked shapes of moisture vaporators.

 

The villagers turn to look at her as she passes through the arch, two dozen suspicious gazes following her. She keeps her shoulders straight beneath their watchful stares, her hands relaxed. Non-threatening. They don’t like strangers in Tuanul and she’s hyper aware of how strange she must look to them. A figure of black in a world of dusty beige.

 

But she knows the sands. She knows the village. Her settled gait reassuring the sharp minds she can feel pressing against her own. A spark of recognition fluttering through them as she lowers her cowl.

 

There are only so many faces on Jakku, after a while you start to recognize them all.

 

The face she’s come here to find seems to almost be waiting for her. A familiar figure across the village centre, back half-turned to her as he converses with a trader. She picks up her pace.

 

“Lor San?” She steps into his path as he waves the trader away. His brow creasing at her sudden appearance. Fingers twisting thoughtfully in the chain he always wears around his neck as it takes a full ten seconds before recognition flares in his eyes.

 

“Rey,” His eyebrows shoot up. “I’d heard you’d left Jakku. Have you come with a message from Unkar Plutt?”

 

She shakes her head, swallowing her nerves as she takes another step toward him. “I was off world, for while. But I need to talk to you about something else. It’s important.”

 

“Important you say?” He makes an odd amused little clucking sound in his throat, “Well I suppose…” His eyes widen suddenly, words dying on his lips. Weather-beaten face turning pale as she feels his shock rise behind impressively thick shields. Glancing down she finds its source, the wind has blown back her scarf, revealing the saber at her hip. She tugs it back, heart stopping in her ribs as he looks at her with uncharacteristic seriousness. “You better come inside, now.”

 

Deceptively strong fingers fasten around her arm, drawing her with him out of the glare of the sun and into his home. The curtain of worn-leather strips sealing the worst of the heat and noise of the village behind them.

 

“Where did you get that, child?” He asks, gesturing for her to take a seat in one of the oddly carved chairs. Another place that hasn’t changed. The same dried herbs on the walls, the fire pit still smouldering gently in the middle of the floor.

 

“It’s mine.” Is all she can think to say as he draws two cups of spinebarrel tea from the filter in the wall. The action is so familiar, so completely at odds with the anxiety still thrumming in her chest, that she almost forgets herself. “It was a... gift.”

 

If she tells him who gave it to her, why she has it, he might not be so keen to hand over the map without things turning ugly.

 

The vision of Eyon Jul rises, the hermit in the woods, his dusty, tear stained face burning in the back of her mind. Reminding her exactly how different she is now from the last time she sat in this seat.

 

Her reaction still scares her. That one moment in the forest where she’d felt all powerful. Untouchable and unbearably strong. She shudders at the memory, the sick twisting guilt and the quieter, infinitely more painful surge of something like _want._

 

She won’t do it again to Lor San.

 

She won’t submit to the darkness, not if she has _any_ other option.

 

Unclenching her hands she accepts the worn clay mug he passes to her, letting herself be calm again. Trying not to wrinkle her nose as she sips the bitter liquid.

 

“Do you know when I was a boy, many _many_ years ago now if you can imagine, I lived in a village a lot like this on Anison.” He eases down into the chair opposite her.

 

She steels herself. One of his stories. She used to love them back in the day, they were rare, rambling but always interesting. Legends and myths. It was from Lor San that she’d first heard about the Force.

 

She nods warily, leaning forward ever so slightly. A flicker of frustration rising in her throat,  the urge to get this over with. She gathers her patience, schooling her face into impassivity as he continues.

 

“It wasn’t a very important planet, we were small and poor. Caught in the middle of a much larger problem, the separatist crisis. My people suffered for it, riots, beatings, we were helpless. And then the Jedi came. Two knights, and their padawans, they freed our village from the thugs. Even if they couldn’t save our planet from the Galactic Empire in the years that followed. It was then I decided to follow this path, to put my faith in the balance of the Force.”

 

“Oh.” She’s not sure what to say so she says nothing instead. Waiting. Part of her wants to know more, to hear the stories Ren has never told her. Ask him what it was like to know a _real_ Jedi. But the majority of her can only shake it’s head. For all his stories Lor San doesn’t truly know the Force, he hasn’t _felt_ it. Not like she has. It can’t be labelled as easily as that.

 

“The reason I tell you this, Rey. Is because one of _those_ Jedi wielded that same lightsaber you have on your belt. I’ll never forget it.”

 

Her fingers clench, curiosity sparking at this strange new information. Another little bit of fate.

 

She schools her reaction. Even through her shock she could hear the eagerness in his words, a feeling almost like desperation rising in him. He _needs_ this to mean something. Her appearance, the saber. It’s almost enough to make her feel guilty.

 

But not so much that she won’t use it to her advantage.

 

She turns her gaze away, looking down as she folds her cloak over the hilt.

 

“A lot has happened in the last few months Lor San.” Is all she says, carefully. “I’ve learnt a lot about things I thought were only stories. And now I’ve come to you only because I have no other hope. I need to find _Skywalker._ ”

 

It’s a gamble.

 

Her heart stutters for a half second before she hears his breath catch. His desperation surging.  This is her moment.

 

“You’re with the Resistance.” He says, “That’s how you got the saber? From the Princess?”

 

“Who else would know?” She asks, choosing her words deliberately, imbibing them with a warm rush of power as she meets his world-wise blue eyes. She lets the need shine in her gaze, burying her own ignorance over his words and instead impressing the importance of the moment in her voice. “Finding him is _vital.”_

 

He takes a deep breath, nodding almost dazedly and making her stomach tighten for a moment as he rises. She didn’t lie. Not really. But the guilt throbs anyway.

 

“Of course,” He mutters, fumbling in the cupboards at the back of the room as her heart starts to race. Beating so hard she thinks it might burst as he returns with an innocuous little leather pouch. “It’s time.”

 

He pauses, eyes shining in the dim light.

 

“I’ve seen so much Rey.” His voice is suddenly so weary, so _hopeful._ It stabs into her. “Without the Jedi there can be no balance, you must know this. Guard this map with your life. If the Princess… the Resistance don’t find Skywalker the balance could be lost forever.” He shudders, placing the warm leather into her palm. Sealing her fingers tightly over the precious little gift. “If it falls into the hands of the First Order the galaxy is lost.”

 

The guilt becomes overwhelming, a sick throb at the earnest belief in his eyes. He doesn’t understand, he _can’t_ understand. Part of her wants to explain it - to tell him the truth. About Ren, how this is the only way he can find peace.The truth about Skywalker, what he did to Ren’s family. All of it.

 

She swallows the words down, nodding sharply instead. “I’ll do whatever has to be done to ensure this gets into the right hands.”

 

She’s still not lying. No matter how much she feels like she is. She’s simply not correcting his assumptions. It’s something she can live with.

 

Rising she swallows down the rest of her drink, not tasting it at all now, leather pouch clenched tightly in her hand.

 

“Thank you Lor San.” She says from the doorway, because she feels like she has to say something.

 

“No, thank you Rey.” His eyes shine in the half-light. Reaching out again to squeeze her arm. “I always knew you were destined for greater things than this planet.”

 

Her throat is so tight she can’t reply, bowing her head instead and leaving. She doesn’t see anything until she’s passed from under the great stone arch that marks the entrance to the village, the world becoming a blur of yellow dust and blue sky. The buzz of the villagers becoming a distant noise as she dashes out into the desert, her heart racing in her ears.

 

She stumbles to a halt in the burning sand once she’s far enough away, untying the pouch and peering inside. The sight of the out-dated data device within steadying her. Through the fog of her own thoughts she feels it, the far-off pulse of worry. Of hope. A reminder of her purpose.

 

Of who’s waiting for her.

 

Elation grips her, rushing through her all at once.

 

_She’s done it._

 

She’s got the map, spared them all any unpleasantness. Talked her way through this task with ease. The feeling sparks and spirals through her limbs. Suddenly reinvigorated she begins the trek back. Lighter than when she left, a weight lifted from her shoulders now.

 

-

 

He’s waiting in front of the ship, pacing a groove in the sand, stumbling forward as she comes into view. Tall and beautiful and foreign in the desert landscape.

 

Her heart leaps, an ecstatic little roll in her chest, pulling her towards him with every step.

 

He looks like _home._

 

“Did you- ?” He asks, unable to get the words out.

 

Her hand reaches automatically for her belt, untucking the pouch and lifting it in the air in triumph.

 

His eyes light up, a raw power sweeping over her. Warming her through as her fingers fumble with the strings, undoing them as she jogs towards him, dropping the out-dated little device into her palm.

 

The warm metal touches her skin and the world tilts.

 

She sees planets on fire, a flickering map of lights, an old man falling. She feels death in her bones, lost in a flashing sequence of horrors. The woman who haunts her visions crying. Snoke. She hears her own voice shouting. _Screaming._ Incomprehensible.

 

_Ren._

 

She sees Ren.

 

Bloodied and broken. Bent in two before the throne of a monster, used up and spat out.

 

Those eyes, black and bright and so full of _feeling_ she can sometimes barely bring herself to look in them…. Empty.

 

_Dead._

 

The vision clears and she’s back in the desert, her own name echoing in her ears as Ren crosses the space between them. Her heart stutters in her chest, fear consuming her as she meets his dark eyes. _Alive._

 

If she gives him this map everything will crumble.

 

If she gives him this map… _he’ll die._

 

She reacts without thinking, hearing the hum of her saber through the blood rushing in her ears. Not even realizing she’s drawn it until she’s dropped the data-drive into the sand and plunged it through. The device melts on contact, sand shooting up with the shriek of plasma. A remnant of twisted metal and glass.

 

She pulls back, saber dying in her hand as she meets his gaze again.

 

 

 


	30. The Fall Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The art of destruction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Hiiiii guys. I just want to start this chapter out by saying that I love you, and that you look /really/ great today... like seriously, have you done something with your hair? It looks amazing. Hope you enjoy this early update! Hope I see you next time too! Yuuuuup! *sweats nervously*
> 
> Rellen DeGenerous. I have three small words for you, but I'm not going to say them... I'm just gonna think them loudly at you instead ;-) ))

 

 

 

There’s a buzzing in his skull.

 

A ringing hollowness that gets louder and louder until it’s deafening him as he stares unseeing into the desert sand. Unable to rip his eyes off the melted, mangled remnants of his hopes lying at her feet.

 

His _future._

 

Everything in his life has led up to this moment. All of the hurt and humiliation, each hard lesson, bruise and bloody failure, it has _all_ been in pursuit of this map. The last link to Skywalker.

 

The only hope he has ever had of making his life _mean_ something.

 

He has dedicated himself, his _life_ to this cause. Given up every inch of his soul to it, all his names, his memories, and now, on the threshold of his destiny, it has been ripped from him.

 

Crushed by the only person he thought he could trust to understand. Who he desperately, foolishly thought would stand beside him when the moment came.

 

She has _destroyed_ him.

 

He can’t breathe.

 

His heart feels like it’s exploding in his chest. He’s suddenly freezing despite the desert heat.  A shaking, shivering wreck as the thoughts beat into him.

 

Then it hits.

 

A pain unlike any he’s ever known. Almost doubling over at the empty, stabbing _hurt_ that rushes through him. Leaving no part of him untouched, no inch un-violated by it. He can’t see through it. Can't fathom it.

 

_How could she?_

 

He had taken her in, trained her, trusted her… he had… she had…

 

A sound escapes him, a pitiful little noise somewhere between a growl and a whimper as he meets her gaze at last. Barely able to look at her face now.

 

“This was your plan all along.” He hears himself say through the fog, voice harsh… broken.

 

He has let her in and she has _betrayed_ him. As everyone else had. The dead boy's lying parents. His mentor. Everyone.

 

This has been an inevitability since the moment he met her and yet somehow he has deluded himself into thinking it could be different. He has _welcomed_ this weakness for her, nurtured it with foolish daydreams about their future, with the impossible belief that she could care for him. _Him._ And she has paid his stupidity back in _full._

 

An anger so deep he can barely comprehend it rises in him, throbbing in time with the emptiness in his chest. White-hot, pitch-black _rage_ as he meets her traitorous hazel eyes. Shining with crocodile tears in the sunlight.

 

“ _Listen-_ ” She says, reaching for him.

 

He stumbles back, spine cracking straight at the sound of her voice, raw and beseeching. Cutting through him as surely as the saber still in her hand would. _Lies._ She’s waiting to _lie_ to him again, to drag him down.

 

“How could you do this?” He can’t stop the words. Suddenly aware there’s warm metal in his hand, his thumb pressed against the ignition of his saber as he stalks towards her. Driving her back now with each unsteady step.

 

“I _trusted_ you.”  

 

His heart is self-destructing in his chest, momentarily weakened by the admission. By the feeling that crashes through him in it’s wake, spilling out from behind his shields before he can stop it. The bone-shattering, heart-stopping pulse of realisation of just how far he'd fallen for her. Exactly how much of his world she had become.

 

“ _Ren-_ I _had_ too, you have to _understand-”_

 

It’s too much. His name on her lips now, shocked, pleading. _Lying._ The darkness surges and he no longer has control of his own limbs. He moves on instinct, the saber roaring to life in his hand, welcoming the sudden whine and growl of plasma.

 

She barely has chance to block the blow, he sees the horror in her eyes through a wash of red but he can’t comprehend it. Can’t make sense of the guilty beat of her fear through the destruction thundering in his veins. She has hurt him in every way possible. Destroyed his life's work, his one chance at redemption. Torn their future apart in front of his eyes.

 

He will not go easy on her now.

 

-

 

_I trusted you._

 

The words echo in her head as she fends off his ragged strikes. The storm of his emotions sweeping through her and leaving her gasping, feeling his shields close up in their wake. Slamming shut against her as she drowns in the after shocks of it.

 

The raw, desperate emotion that shakes her right down to her bones.

 

They’ve never put words to it. To the bond that’s formed between them with each fragile moment they've spent together. The one that's grown and twisted like a vine until it’s crushing her chest under the weight of it.

 

But now she knows. Without question, without a shadow of doubt, she knows this thing she feels for him is _love._

 

Terrifying, disbelieving _love._

 

She might not understand it, might not be able to comprehend the emotions he brings out in her or know what she ought to do about them. But she can no longer deny it. And what’s worse is she’s seen it’s mirror in him, felt the depths of his affection. Seen it fracture and twist beneath her betrayal.

 

Her heart hasn't been fully her own for a long time, and now she can feel it breaking inside of her.

 

She has to fix it.

 

She has to make him _understand._

 

Their lightsabers clash, unbearably loud in the still desert. She darts back, losing ground as he lashes out in long armed strikes that it takes every inch of her strength to block.

 

This isn’t like when they spar.

 

There is no safety here, no _trust._ She can taste her heart in her mouth with every desperate beat. Struggling to speak as she ducks a blow, trying to disarm him. To hold him off long enough to get the words out.

 

“You have to listen to me, Ren-” she gasps, “-the map-”

 

He surges forward, sending shock waves jarring through her bones with the ferocity of his strike.

 

“You would have _died._ ” Her eyes are burning, tears pricking angrily against the back of them as she pushes her weight against his blade. Gaining ground at last. “ _I saw it._ I had no _choice.”_

 

He falters, blade lowering warily for a half second as he stares at her like he doesn't know her, like she’s an enemy. Her heart thunders, bruising the insides her ribs at the uncertainty in his gaze. Then his eyes narrow and she feels her hope crumble.

“ _Liar.”_ He roars, feet slipping in the sand as he presses his advantage.

 

He can’t hear her _._ His mind is a tempest behind his shields, pounding and painful, even she can’t reach him through the confusion inside his head. Can’t make him _see._ Her arms are shaking with the effort of holding him off. Legs unsteady from the miles she’s already walked, muscles burning in the afternoon sunlight as she parries and paces.

 

Her mind darts backwards with each step she loses to him. Flashing through every moment they’ve spent together. She sees the last few months in reverse.

 

His quarters. His touch. The first time they kissed. The first time they fought. That very first lesson, back when she thought he was a monster and he thought she was a nobody. When he’d fought her to her knees, held her pinned in his arms as the anger rose inside of her. The frustration.

 

She remembers his promise.

 

_You will never feel helpless again. I swear it._

 

She remembers the way she’d taken his hand, how badly she’d wanted it to be true.

 

How much she’d hated him then.

 

She's a much better fighter now, stronger and faster than ever. But suddenly, no matter how many blows she blocks and strikes she parries, she feels utterly helpless.

 

She can’t get through to him.

 

She can’t make him understand.

  
They are more strangers now then they ever were back then.

 

She acted rashly, she knows it, what she did was a betrayal she feels down to her bones. But if he’d only _listen_ to her. Let her show him what she saw, he’d _understand._ She did it to save the galaxy.

 

To save his life.

 

Because, when she saw him like that, empty eyed and bleeding, she’d felt the ground drop out from under her. A sensation unlike anything she’d ever felt before.

 

Like she couldn’t go on living without him.

 

But by saving him, by destroying the map, she seems to have taken his place. Signing her own death warrant as he rages against her. The guilt in her gut turns to frustration, to _anger_. Mixing dangerously with her all-consuming fear.

 

_How could he do this to her?_

 

She blocks a particularly savage blow, tears in her eyes as she stumbles out of the way of another. This is her terrain, she knows the sand better than he ever could, but he still has the upper hand. His strength, the raw power of his rage, it makes him more than formidable.

 

She only has one option left to her, if she goes on like this, keeps fighting him, it won’t stop. They’ll hack and slash until the sun sets and there’s nothing left but pieces. Carrion for the birds.

 

Darting out of his reach she falls back. Letting her saber fall from her hand, clenching them into fists at her sides as she stands perfectly still. Praying to any god who’ll listen to her that there’s enough of the man left that he won’t do the unthinkable.

  
That she can trust him _one_ more time.

 

And if he doesn’t… if he strikes her now. Well, maybe it’s what she deserves for what she’s done.

 

She swallows tightly, fighting to keep her eyes open as he swings his saber around. Feeling the burn of plasma biting at her neck as he wields it against her.

 

-

 

The blade stalls, his arms locking as he holds it to her throat.

 

Watches the pulse race beneath the blood red glow like an engine. Seeing the fear behind the taut lines of her face, the _resignation._

 

He _can’t_ hurt her.

 

Not even now.

 

He should drive her through. Cut her down. Like his Master had demanded of him, like he’d _warned_ him too. She is a traitor, a _liar,_ she has ruined everything.

 

He should end this once and for all.

 

He draws the saber away unsteadily, hand shaking as he drags it to his side.

 

The weakness inside of him sickens him, the anger becoming an aching throb as the hurt rushes back in. Leaving him shivering despite the ungodly heat. She’s standing defenseless in the sand before him, head held proudly as she waits for her fate.

 

Her chin thrust fiercely in the air despite the tears running in rivulets down her face.

 

She was _everything._

 

He has nothing now. No destiny, no legacy, not even her.

 

And he cannot even bring himself to get the proper justice for it.

 

Instead he does the only thing he can, the only way he has left of _hurting_ her. Of reminding her of what she was before him, _without_ him.

 

Back when she was nothing.

 

_Nobody._

 

He draws in a deep breath and does the one thing he knows will crush her more than any physical blow could. More than any pain or humiliation.

 

He leaves her there.

 

Alone, standing gasping in the desert as he stalks into the shuttle. Sealing the ramp shut behind him, he sinks into the pilot seat. Replacing his mask as the auto-nav takes him from the planet surface.

 

Through the ice of his emotions he feels it. Far off and clouded as the ship breaks through the planet’s atmosphere.

 

Something within him breaks.

 


	31. The Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lesson in self-preservation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Oh my god (ohmygodyouguys) I literally will never be able to thank you enough for reading and commenting and just - gah! I swear y'all have made me ten years younger, my skin clearer and my hair shinier! :P Thank yoooou! 
> 
> Okay so this chapter (alternatively titled: "Kylo Ren and the THAT WAS A DICK MOVE BUDDY" turned out a leeeeeetle bit shorter than anticipated BUT I have another update scheduled for this weekend so not long to wait this time I promise! :P 
> 
> My Funny Rellsentine - It's weird typing this with you looking at me. Stop it. Omg. (Also thannnnkkkk yoooouuuu <3333) ))

 

 

 

Her legs fall out from under her.

 

A deep shuddering gasp rocking through her as she sinks to her knees in the burning sand. Watching the sky long after the ship breaks atmosphere. Staring unblinking into the blue until her eyes blur.

 

The pain in her chest is almost unbearable. A hollow aching in the place where her heart should be. But when she looks down there's no saber hilt sticking from her ribs. No blood or bruising or telling sign to justify it.

 

This is an invisible kind of hurt. Deeper than any she's felt before.

 

And she only has herself to blame for it.

 

She stays there, letting it wash through her for one long moment as her shoulders blister under the afternoon sun. Knocked down. Broken. Abandoned to her nightmares by the only person in the world she’d ever trusted not to leave her there.

 

But then she gets up. 

 

Dragging her legs up under her with an almost super-human amount of effort. Like she's pulling herself through molasses. But she does it anyway, each step getting easier as she gathers up her lightsaber, readjusts her cowl over her burnt skin and puts one foot in front of the other.

 

Because that’s what she  _ does.  _

 

She  _ survives. _

 

And if Ren has given up on her, well, she still has herself.

 

She'd seen two old speeders under a tarp at the back of the watchpost in Tuanul when she'd left. Her mind focusing in razor sharp on the memory, mapping out their specs as she treks back to the village. Concentrating on the terrain. The burn of her muscles. The dry scrape of air in her lungs. Everything and anything but what just happened.

 

It's almost too easy to steal the better looking of the two, she's been well trained after all. She winds her powers around the villagers, drawing their attention away from her as she darts behind the wall. Light-footed in the shifting sand. Unnoticed as she starts up the propulsion jets and walks it out the back entrance of the village.

 

She kicks her legs over the rusted metal as soon as she’s clear, it's been pieced together from an old imperial model. No where near as good as  _ her  _ speeder. The one she'd built from scratch from the choicest parts of her salvage. But she doesn't care, doesn't let her heart catch at the too-familiar rolling motion as the engine starts she shoots out over the dunes. Cowl pulled up high, sand kicking into her face as if she'd never left. 

 

As if this is any other afternoon. Returning to the outpost with a bundle of salvage and an empty stomach.

 

She bites her teeth against the memories.

 

It doesn't matter. None of it matters. She pushes the speeder faster, tearing through the desert until the world becomes a blur of flat blue and yellow. The sun already beginning its descent through the sky. 

 

She only pauses once, when she reaches the halfway point. Skidding to a stop in a painfully familiar landscape. Her heart jumping violently at the sight of the scarred AT-AT half buried in the dunes. Her old home, the sand piled up against the half-open hatch. It's been ransacked now, she can see that from here. The last fragments of her belongings scattered in the sand. Picked apart by the other scavengers.

 

She doesn't go in. She doesn't need too, seeing it in perfect detail inside her own head. Her hammock torn down, stove pulled out, the wall of marks… Untouched. Each lonely day scarred into the metal. Endless, uncountable disappointments. Gritting her teeth she turns away and guns the engine.

 

It isn’t her home any more. It never was.

 

And there is no way in hell she’ll be adding  _ any  _ more scratches to the wall.

 

One way or another she's getting off this planet tonight.

 

-

 

Ren scrambles the auto-nav, silencing the engines and pushing the ship off course.

 

The thought of stepping back onto the Finalizer without her is unbearable.

 

So he doesn't think about it.

 

Any of it.

 

He drifts. Hunched over in his seat, staring unseeing at the bright lights of the cosmos as the ship spirals lazily through the void.

 

He tries to block it all out, lock down every feeling, every stubborn flash of memory. The trembling of her jaw as he held his saber against her throat, bright eyes and salt-stained cheeks.

 

His shields, always razor sharp and durasteel strong, have turned ragged. Dented and flawed, the thoughts spilling through like ice water into his veins.

 

The loss of her.

 

The aching emptiness that's taken possession of his bones.

 

Not even the rage can help him now. The anger has turned pitiful, hollow. He curls into himself, focusing on the chill. The flat darkness inside of him. Wrapping himself up in the nothing as time slips away from him. Slowly, carefully shutting out everything until there’s only the stillness left.

 

Only the mask.

 

The system beeps and time starts again, realizing with a jolt just how long he’s lingered there

 

Pulling himself up he slips the ship back into drive, barely noticing the change in constellations when the hyper-drive drops and he locks into the docking bay. The Finalizer has moved in his absence.

 

He's ready when the ramp drops. Secure in the emptiness inside of him as he steps into the chaotic hangar. Ignoring the suddenly stabbing pulse of other people's emotions as he moves through them, he has no time to waste in their petty confusion now.

 

His path is clear.

 

He must regroup. Decide his next move, his next goal. Keep his mind focused only on his relentless pursuit of glory. The rest can wait.

 

The door to his quarters wooshes open.

 

He was wrong.

 

There is no preparing for this. No shielding. No safe darkness or focused planning.  The weight of what he’s done hits him like a battering ram to the chest the moment he steps into the room, driving the air from his lungs.

 

It’s  _ cold _ , unnaturally cold, empty and echoing with memories he can’t fight back any longer. 

 

He sees her sitting at the table, face scrunched up as she complains about her day. He watches her whirl from of the training room, saber still in hand as their sparring spills out into the main room. Eyes lit up with excitement. Sees her curled up in his bed.  _ Their  _ bed. The steady rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps. Sees the way she looks at him in those quiet moments. The weight of her trust in suddenly solemn eyes. Her hand pressed to his heart, a silent admission of something neither could say.

 

He sees her standing in the sand with horror in her eyes as he turned away from her.

 

His fingers spread across his breastbone, it feels like he’s bleeding. Like red should be spilling out over his knuckles, only it isn’t.

 

_ He left her there. _

 

The map… Skywalker...  _ vengeance _ … it all suddenly seems so far off to him. His world crashing down around him as he realizes that he’s dedicated his life to a  _ theory. _ To another empty mask. A hollow promise. 

 

He’s been so blinded by it he’s let the only real thing he’s ever touched slip through his fingers.

 

_ “You have to listen to me, Ren.”  _ Her voice echoes in his head, breathless and pleading. “ _ The map- You would have died. I saw it _ .”

 

He’d felt the ripple in the force when she’d touched the data-device hadn’t he? Seen the horror cloud her face as her eyes drifted away from him. Somewhere he couldn’t reach her as panic seized his chest. Was it  _ so _ impossible to believe she’d done what she had in a misguided attempt to  _ save  _ him?

 

His mind is in chaos. The conflict in him spiralling out of control at the thought of what he’d done. What  _ she’d  _ done. Betrayal or salvation. Anger or remorse. He finds he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter. She threw him into his nightmare and he in turn has left her in hers. Destroyed her in every painful way he knows how. And he can’t bear it.

 

Whether she falls into his arms or he has to lock her in his quarters until she will listen to him again is inconsequential, one way or another he is getting her back. 

 

_ Tonight. _

  
  



	32. Recognition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She sees herself in the unlikeliest of places.  
> He can only see himself with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (( Whattup holmes! I promised a weekend update and I juuuust about delivered *sweats nervously whilst staring at the clock*  
> Anyway! I just... I really hope you enjoy this next part of the story, like really, I hope you like it! I know people were fairly divided last time over what they wanted to go down and well, this is it, soooo... yeah! I hope you like :P And thank you so much as always for your support - you guys seriously do make my life so much brighter, there's no way I'd still be writing this without you! <3 
> 
> In other news I'm away next week with the sister, who has absolutely no idea I spend my evenings writing space nonsense, so I'm not sure what day I'll be able to get an update out -it'll be strictly stealth writing from here out! (There is no way in hellsies she's finding out about this, pinky swear you won't tell her k? :P)
> 
> Rose Rell, you beautiful beta-fish you! Thanks so much for your help with this! (and hehe I'm still proud about only being one moon out on that GG line ;-)) ))

  
  


It’s nightfall by the time she makes it to the Outpost. 

 

Making no effort to blend in as she dumps the speeder at the outskirts. No one dares approach her, the black-clad stranger with power flickering off the straight set of her shoulders. The despair she’s been suppressing all day has boiled beneath the sun, turning to rage in the pit of her stomach. A lava-like fury that sweeps everything else from her as she stalks through the town. She welcomes it, it keeps her from feeling anything else. From  _ remembering _ anything else. 

 

She needs a ship.

 

And there is only one man on Jakku she can get it from.

 

_ Unkar Plutt. _

 

The name rankles, a burning coal in her chest as she crosses to his window. He’s working late this evening, lucky her. There’s a man already there, arguing with him. An off-worlder. He’s too clean, too well-put together, to be anything else. All chestnut curls and easy smiles, a round little droid sitting at his feet.

 

“Listen pal, buddy, you gotta help me. I just need to know where she might have g-”

 

She knocks him aside with a wave of her fingers, earning an  _ oof  _ of surprise as she pushes past him to the window. Seeing that fat, blubbery face she’s loathed for so long waiting for her beneath the lamps.

 

The memories rise with a vengeance.

 

Every time he’d swindled her out of food. Cut her prices, undervalued her,  _ kept her down. _

 

“Girl!” He starts back in his seat, jowls swinging as she braces a hand against the metal, still warm from the day's heat. “What’re you doing back h-”

 

“Give me a ship.” Her voice is unrecognizable, even to herself, gravelly from swallowed sobs and sand, shaking in her throat.

 

He  _ laughs  _ at her. Deep, mocking gasps of laughter as he slams his hands down onto the counter, ducking down to better leer at her.

 

“Why would I give  _ you _ a-”

 

She cuts him off again, unable to bear the smug superiority of his voice as it grates into her. Snapping out her hand she seizes him with her power, wrapping it around his bulging throat and  _ squeezing.  _

 

“It wasn’t a question.” She can feel the muscles popping beneath her grip as he strains to breathe, fleshy face turning puce as she tightens and tightens before releasing him with a shudder when she starts to feel his pulse flag. It takes every ounce of self control she has not to keep squeezing. “Give me a ship. Now.”

 

“The freighter - take the freighter” He chokes, flat nostrils flaring as he gasps for air, another rusted data-device slapped down on the counter between them. “Th- The ignition codes.”

 

She takes the out dated drive, too similar to the last for her liking, eyes narrowing as she considers her options. The darkness inside of her is roaring now. It’s screaming at her to finish this _.  _ To make sure that no one else suffers at his hands as she has. To stop his heart for all he’s done to her. For keeping her here, crushing her spirit, _ abandoning _ her - the thoughts screech to a halt. Angry tears prickling behind her eyes as she remembers the real reason for her current rage.

 

Unfurling her clenched fists she bites her mouth shut. Turning silently on her heel.

 

“You won’t make it far, Rey-” He calls after her, a pitiful attempt at intimidation. “Wherever you go you’ll always wind up back in the  _ dust.” _

 

Her fist tightens again, knocking him out with a twist of her hand.  A petty little victory that warms through her chest as she strides back into the darkness.

 

“Wait-  _ Rey? You’re _ Rey?” A voice calls from behind her, the off-worlder scrabbling up from the sand to follow her. She ignores him. “You have  _ got _ to be kidding me... Hey wait! I need to talk to you-”

 

A hand reaches for her and she reacts on instinct. Unaware she’s even pulled her saber until she can hear the dull hum of plasma in the air, holding it to the throat of the stranger as the night-crowd scuttles back. Deserting the area as she holds him half-frozen in front of her. His face pales, more surprised than scared under the blue light as he holds his hands up.

 

The droid shrills, rushing at her and she freezes it too. Hearing the indignant scream of beeps through the fog of her anger. The blood-red rage rising in her gullet.

 

“Woah there - I just need to talk to you-” He says, eyes darting down to the saber in her hand as the droid trills at her from their feet. “Also where can I get one of those? Can I borrow it sometime? I think I could make it work you know-”

 

“ _ What do you want? _ ” The words are biting, cold. This man can have no business with her and she has no time for this case of mistaken identity. Not with the darkness still coiling in her chest. It’s better for everyone if she leaves and leaves soon. Before she does something they all will regret.

 

“I’ve come from Lor San Tekka’s - I’m a pilot with the Resistance - he said a girl named Rey had the map.” He inches away from the blade. Suddenly almost serious, gaze turning solemn...  _ truthful _ . “That’s you right? He said you were with us but that’s not true... Not that it matters, just - please, you gotta help me out here. The galaxy is counting on it.”

 

It’s her turn to freeze. So Lor San sent him after her. Another desperate soul hanging their hopes off of something that no longer existed. She kills the blade, clipping it back to her belt as something painful throbs inside of her. Turning away from him as she releases them from her power.

 

“Well then I’m sorry to disappoint you.” She says to the shadows, already walking away from this strange interaction. “The map is gone. I destroyed it.”  _ That and so much more. _

 

“Wait - you did  _ what?”  _ his disbelief spikes, still trailing after her as she heads through the dusty streets towards the ship yard. She should have insisted on the Quad Jumper, the freighter - an old corellian model - is little more than salvage anymore. So rusted and ancient it’s practically unflyable. She’s almost decided to hot wire the better ship when the man tries to reach for her again.

 

She ducks his grasp as the droid at their heels lets out a string of beeps. A cry of warning, only it’s not aimed at her this time, a far off whine of engines rumbling through the ground. Kicking up dust as a sudden stab of fear spikes over her nerves from the people of the outpost.

 

She whips her head up so fast her neck cracks, a line of First Order transporters filling the horizon.

 

“We’ve got company.” The man mutters, his face suddenly turning serious. Eyebrows drawing in as he sizes up the incoming ships. “We need to leave.”

 

Her heart clenches. A dizzying wave of hope and terror sweeping over her at the sight of the familiar ships.

 

_ He’s come back for her. _

 

-

 

Ren is halfway to the hangar when he’s cornered. Hux striding towards him from the direction of the bridge, pale face creased with rage as he forces his way into Ren’s personal space. Flat blue eyes narrowed beneath his cap.

 

“Where in the eight moons of Yavin have you been?” He snaps, practically spitting contempt and sending Ren rearing back. “No actually, don’t tell me. I don’t care.”

 

For a moment he can only stare in incomprehension, adrenaline congealing in his veins as the General crowds into him. He’s been so consumed with his need to get back to  _ her _ he has forgotten about Hux and his petty bureaucracies completely. 

 

About the _ First Order _ completely. 

 

Everything has paled against his need to get back to her.

 

Remembering himself Ren draws himself up, back stiffening under the contemptuous tone. The anguish inside becoming rage once more, finding a new channel. A new focus for all of the darkness cutting him up inside. 

 

How  _ dare  _ Hux interrupt him now.

 

And with such abject disrespect. His hands clench and suddenly it’s all he can do to keep himself from snapping the other man’s neck like a twig. Every second he wastes is another moment she might come to harm without him. Too many hours have already passed, he will not compound his sins by leaving her a moment longer on that waste planet.

 

Hux however seems to sense none of his rage, continuing with the same harsh superiority. “The Resistance has encroached into First Order territory. It seems they’ve found the location of your _precious_ map on Jakku. Although I doubt it’s still there.” He sniffs, nostrils flaring. “I’ve had to launch the first wave of troops without you. Captain Phasma should have cleared the area by now.”

 

Ren barely hears the end of the sentence, the snide tone lost against the sudden ringing in his ears. The raw fear that seizes his chest as the words sink in.

 

The Resistance has found the maps location. Which means--

 

“ _ Jakku. _ ” He repeats. Even the mask is unable to disguise the ragged gasp in his voice as he takes it in. Fighting to keep his composure steady. To keep from betraying himself as he momentarily forgets how to breathe.  “Ready my ship.”

 

“It’s waiting for your  _ convenience. _ ” Hux sneers, already turning from him. “I’d hurry if I were you Ren, you wouldn’t want to disappoint the Supreme Leader again.”

 

The words are meaningless. There’s only one thought in his head now.

 

_ Rey. _

 

As soon as Hux turns the corner Ren breaks into a run.

 

-

 

Second hand tension sweeps over her, familiar faces arming themselves against the oncoming First Order approach. Others already running for the dunes. 

 

She’s frozen there for one long moment, breathless with anticipation, and then she hears the first screams and reality sets in hard.

 

The ships are gaining fast. The ramps already dropping to reveal the stark white shapes of storm troopers. Oddly familiar and yet completely out of place in the desert landscape as they disembark with ordered precision. Like toys on strings.

 

There is no sign of Ren, no familiar beat of power against her shields, only stark white and shiny chrome armour emerging from the belly of the ships. Blasters raised.

 

The pathetic, pitiful little moment of hope crushes her all over again. She latches back onto her rage, even as it slips and starts beneath her grasp. Punctured by this new betrayal as she tries to shove the thoughts aside, suddenly sick to her stomach. 

 

Has he sent them here to kill her? To finish the job he couldn’t do?

 

Would he destroy the entire Outpost for what she had done?

 

She stretches her powers, slipping over the steady minds of the distant troopers. Well-oiled and blank, catching what she needs from the mind of their Captain.

 

They are not here for her at all.

 

Her eyes shoot back to her unwanted companion, they’ve come because of  _ him.  _

 

_ The Resistance. _

 

This isn’t her fight.

 

Once she realizes it she doesn’t wait. Doesn’t stop to think. Turning on her heel and dashing towards the ship yard. 

 

There's a second transporter in her way, cutting her off from the entrance. A squad of troopers spread across the street, already firing on the people of the Outpost who dare stand their ground against them. There’s fire arcing through the air, the night becoming day-bright as the tents go up in flames.

 

She clenches her fists as the horror washes through her, knowing she has no place in this battle. That whatever side she takes she will lose. No, the only side she has now is her own.

 

And nothing is going to stop her from leaving this planet now. 

 

Not the Resistance, not Ren, not the entire might of the First Order. 

 

Her saber is alive in her hand, ready to fight her way through the chaos. Deflecting blaster fire on instinct as she runs for the shipyard, seizing the attention of the half-dozen troopers marching towards her.

 

Her training takes over.

 

Vicious adrenaline thundering through her veins as they strike at her.  She arcs her blade up, a spinning blow that takes one out at the knees. Darts left, shoulder blow. Right, chest.

 

Three down.

 

The fourth she takes with a twist of her power, the fifth she sends flying out over the dunes.

 

There’s fury in her veins and darkness coiling between her ribs as she sights the last one left in her way. Number six up ahead, crouching over a fallen comrade. His blood-streaked mask wavering as he clambers to his feet. She’s ready. Hand shooting up to knock him back down when the blaster drops from his hand. Kicking up dust as he backs away from the body.

 

Her mind snaps around his on instinct at the strange reaction and all at once she’s drowning in horror.

 

The conflict so sudden, so unexpected, it freezes her in place. She feels it all like a wave crashing through her, the terrified certainty inside of him that this is  _ wrong,  _ and yet this is all he knows _.  _ A nightmarish mix of feelings as he scrabbles with the latch on his mask. Gasping for air.

 

Stumbling, she feels her heart jump as he pulls it free. She  _ recognizes  _ this man. From the canteen of the Finalizer. His dark skin shining with sweat now, sickened and scared in the fire’s glow.

 

Her stomach drops as the notion strikes her, how many other faces would she recognize if their masks were off? Who exactly is she fighting?

 

Is everyone she’s ever met destined to suffer on this hell planet?

 

She pushes it down, stores it away. There’ll be time to fall apart later, right now she just needs to get out. Already half turned back to the path when something stops her. 

 

It feels  _ wrong _ to leave him stranded here somehow. Not with his conflict still racing in her skull.

 

A broken reflection of her own.

 

Knowing on instinct there can be no place in the First Order for him anymore. Like there’s no place for her.

 

Narrowing her eyes she turns back to the trooper, gesturing harshly to the shipyard, “if you want out, now’s your chance.”

 

He looks at her through clouded eyes.

 

“What? I- I can’t the-” The words are hazy, confused, his breath stuttering like a broken engine. Panic thundering inside of him, buzzing through her head until she can’t think through it. Until she has to throw up her shields to block it out.

 

“We gotta go-” The man, the resistance pilot rushes towards her. She’d forgotten him in the chaos, flinching as his calloused hand grabs at her. Skin crawling at his easy touch.

 

“Why would I go anywhere with  _ you?”  _ She snaps, pushing him away as the world burns down around her.

 

“Well... they kinda blew up my ride,” He runs a hand through tousled hair, “and I was sort of hoping you’d give a guy a lift, since… y’know, you threatened my life and destroyed the only chance of hope in the galaxy. I’d kinda say you owe me one.” 

 

She flinches again at the reminder of her failings. Teeth snapping shut at the laughing words.

 

The droid rolls after him, shrill screams of terror escaping it as it bounces across the uneven surface.The sound hotwires itself directly from her ears into her chest, squeezing at her heart. She may not care for the man but the droid is an innocent. It doesn’t deserve whatever horrors are waiting if she leaves them there.

 

“I’m dropping you both off on the first planet I get to.” She glares as the off-worlder’s face breaks into a white-toothed grin. Glancing back behind her at the trooper still standing horrified in their wake. There has been too much darkness today, too much pain. “And you, if you want out we go now.”

 

“Wait, so you’re complaining about me but you wanna give a  _ stormtrooper a ride?”   _ The off-worlder starts, throwing a hand up in disbelief. 

 

“Are you coming or not?” She ignores the pilot, snapping at the unmasked soldier instead. Feeling the frustration rise in her chest, the darkness fading into hurt as she watches him struggle over his decision. The conflict on his face lit up as everything she’s ever known goes up in flames. “I’m not waiting.”

 

“I- I’m coming.” He nods and she sees the something hard settle over his face. A fierce kind of determination as he jogs to catch up with them. A reckless, terrified  _ hope _ as he breaks training, casting his armour aside as he runs. Fingers shaking as he unclips the tracker from his belt.

 

“Which ship?” The resistance pilot shouts as they duck an overhead volley of laser fire, watching the quad-jumper explode in front of them. “Well that narrows our choices.”

 

Her mind snaps back to the last time she helped Plutt with the freighter as they switch course. The problems with the hyperdrive, the suppressors on the fuel line. If they’re gonna get out of system clean she’ll need to fix it...

 

But first they just have to make it onto the ship.

 

And off the planet.

  
  



	33. Stuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two steps forward...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (('Sup my guys! So I managed to stealth write my way to a whole chapter this week! BOOM!   
> Next week is gonna be a little dodgy too but FINGERS CROSSED I can stay on schedule :P As always my most huge and insanely grateful thanks to everyone who reads & comments! You are the best of people and I love your faces! :P
> 
> Rella-Jade - thanks for the beta-fish as always lady! You're the bestest! <3))

 

 

He’s moving the moment the shuttle touches down on the planet surface. Striding down the ramp and into the carnage, eyes darting for her familiar form. Knowing already that it’s in vain.

 

She’s not here.

 

He’s been reaching for her since the moment they left the Finalizer. Powers stretching and slipping around the far off glow that has become uniquely  _ her  _ in his mind. A constant warmth in the back of his thoughts which has flickered… faded out until he can barely grasp it. He’s taught her too well, her shields locked tight against him as he calls across the void.

 

This is not the village he left her near, the geography is wrong. The burnt remains of a much larger settlement. The battle already over as his feet stamp into the dust, the people of this desolate little place corralled along the outskirts. Held in place by the pointed blasters of the stormtroopers.

 

His eyes are stinging with the smell of burnt canvas and charred flesh, chest burning with it as he strides towards the unmistakable form of the Stormtrooper’s Captain, her armour alight with the fire’s glow.

 

She snaps to attention at his approach.

 

“Report.” He demands, gaze already slipping past her, still looking for the face he knows isn’t there. Feeling the ghost of her presence ingrained in every inch of this broken landscape. The thread of her power buried deep in each broken stone and grain of sand.

 

“There was a resistance pilot and a droid in this location, sir.” Phasma’s words are concise. Clipped, calm, no extraneous detail falling into the precision of her speech. “His ship was destroyed but he escaped in a YT-model freighter with the help of one of our own. We are making efforts to identify the traitor. If they have the map we will find out.”

 

“They don’t have the map.” Ren says, voice tight through the modulator. The Captain doesn’t ask how he knows, she doesn’t have to. Accepting the words effortlessly as he straightens his shoulders. “Is that all, Captain?”

 

“There have been reports, sir--” He feels the barest flicker of change colouring her organized mind, something between disbelief and distaste at what she’s been told. “That the pilot was assisted by a woman wielding a...  _ lightsaber. _ ”

His hand crushes into a fist at his side. Barely able to restrain the whiplash of fury that snakes up inside him at the words. Something washes over the stormtrooper at her side’s mind and Ren seizes on it. Pushing into his mind, ripping the thoughts out without hesitation. 

 

This nobody has  _ seen  _ her. Letting Ren watch her second hand through his eyes.

 

She’s  _ fiercesome. _

 

A figure in black, the angry furrow of her brow bathed in blue light as she roars through the faceless soldiers keeping her from her goal like they’re nothing. He recognizes each strike, each pull of her power, feeling the far off ebb of the troopers fear, his  _ awe,  _ as she moves.

 

A sudden pulse of pride squeezes in his ribs as he watches her graceful destruction, momentarily distracting him from the rage that they dared fire upon her in the first place. His need to kill each and every trooper who dared raise their weapon against her. Then the memory flickers. He sees a man in a dark jacket trailing in her wake from the corner of his gaze, watches him move along after her with an easy familiarity. The Resistance pilot. Something truly dark pulses in him. Then the gaze turns away, the trooper’s focus pulled by a sudden volley of laser fire and the memory is gone.

 

Bitter adrenaline stings his tongue as he lashes out at the trooper who had dared turn away from her. Striking him down with a single stab of his powers, sending him crumpling to the ground. If Phasma is surprised she makes no show of it. Signalling discreetly to two other drones to deal with it.

 

“Keep this  _ woman  _ out of your reports, Captain.” He snaps. “And track the ship. I want to be the first to know when it’s discovered, do you understand me?”

 

“Yes, Commander Ren.” She snaps off a smart salute as he turns away from her. “Sir? What should we do about the villagers?”

 

He waves the question away, it’s unimportant what happens to the lives of these pitiful nobodies. 

 

The only thing that matters is Rey, and the fact she didn’t wait.

 

She thought he'd left her there for good. Abandoned her as completely as any before him.

 

He feels sick to his stomach. He knows better than anyone the depths of her loneliness, felt it in his head like his own. Remembering how hard he'd had to fight to gain her trust, to coax her to his side. And now in one fell swoop he's destroyed it all.

 

The image of the man surfaces again, the one who'd chased her through the street, and something ugly boils within him at the easy familiarity in his gait. That he'd dared presume to  _ know  _ her. He must find out more, about the ship, the damned Resistance pilot…

 

His blood runs cold.

 

The  _ Resistance. _

 

Panic worms up inside of him, gnawing through the last threads of his composure. What if it’s true? What if he’s forced her out of his arms and into theirs? If she wound up at their HQ, speaking to their leader, to his… To the woman who had borne the dead boy he once had been. What would she think of him then? 

 

He can’t stand to think about it. How impossible it would be then to snatch her back to him after they had poisoned her with their lies and false accounts. There are so many things he hasn’t told her. About the whole ugly mess of his past, himself, and if he doesn’t get there first - doesn’t show her  _ everything  _ before they can she might never forgive him.

 

If she hears his life from them…

 

Her loyalty to him had been absolute and yet now… He reaches again for her mind, cursing himself as she slips through his fingers. Her shields locked tight against him, against everything, all he can feel is a far off pulse of determination. Of panic. He has taught her too well indeed.

 

The connection slips away from him, an intangible little pulse in the back of his mind. And yet still he can feel her, the echo of her written across every surface of this desert place. He finds himself faltering, drawing to a halt in the sand as a face catches his eye from the crowd. A lumbering, ugly creature who sets his teeth on edge. He has seen this man, this thing before… in Rey’s memories.

 

The rage is uncontrollable. Burning him up from the inside as he drags him from the crowd with a twist of his power. 

 

“You.”

 

He doesn’t hesitate, fingers clenching as he rips into this  _ thing _ ’s mind like tissue paper. Pulling out the memories he needs without heed to the pitiful screams it makes. He sees Rey.

 

Over and over again.

 

He watches the hope flicker in the eyes of a hungry child. Watches her expression turn hard over the years, feels this creature’s satisfaction every time he cons her out of a choice bit of salvage. Watches her grow, watches her become warier and warier. And more undeniably beautiful. Sees the tiny little flicker of despair in her eyes every time she’s cheated. Every time the creature looks a little too long. A little too hard.

 

He watches the hope  _ die  _ in front of his eyes.

 

And then she’s older. Painfully familiar in her black cowl. Feels her rage as she chokes the life from him. Sees the hurt in her gaze, the way she pulls back, lips thinning into a hard line. Watches her walk away.

 

Ren feels his heart shred itself in his chest.

 

He doesn’t think. Not for a second. Igniting his lightsaber and cutting down Plutt where he stands. Leaving the broken halves of his great form to paint the sand red in his wake as he heads back to his ship.

 

Watching her walk away from him over and over again, the image burnt into his retinas.

 

_ Rey.  _ He thinks grimly, desperately, heart beating a mile a minute in his chest,  _ No matter what I will find you.  _

 

_ And when I do I am never leaving you again. _

 

-

 

They worked well together.

 

The offworlder, the stormtrooper and her.  _ Surprisingly  _ well. 

 

With the chaos and confusion there was no time for arguments. Her sitting in the pilot’s seat, the off-worlder… Poe. He said his name was Poe, grumbling as he fell into the co-pilots chair, taking up the slack with ease. The trooper, FN-2187, doing a more than adequate job manning the turret. 

 

She could feel his elation roll over her when Poe gave him a name of his own in the middle of the battle.  _ Finn.  _ Hearing the joy in his voice as they took on the First Order together. 

 

“The angry girl in the black get up is Rey.” Poe had laughed as they fought their way out of the planet’s atmosphere. Having to shout over the sound of the ion cannon to be heard. “I don’t recommend pissing her off.”

 

She’d snorted. The adrenaline of the battle, the escape, letting her temporarily forget about the reason she needed to get off the planet in the first place. 

 

She’s almost laughing as they converge in the corridor after breaking out of the system at last, all of them talking a mile a minute as they compare notes on what happened. Heart thundering in her ears as she feels their elation like her own. Even the droid seems to have forgiven her now as Finn gushes over their flying, Poe punching him in the arm with a grin as he raves over the ex-storm troopers sharp shooting.

 

Then she catches sight of herself out of the corner of her eye, reflected back in the polished metal of the side panel. Not recognizing herself. The black cowl still hanging around her shoulders,  _ his  _ cowl. And it all comes flooding back.

 

The world shifts beneath her feet, her balance failing her as something she can’t name washes through her. A feeling of anguish, of… determination, so strong it leaves her breathless. Something not entirely her own as a voice echoes in her ears,  _ his  _ voice, although she can't make out the words.

 

She shivers beneath the sudden rush, pulling the cowl off, bundling the fabric up and tying it to her belt as she turns from the others. Gravity kicking back in as she pushes the strange sensation away. Their puzzled gazes following her as she walks away. 

 

“Rey?” The trooper,  _ Finn,  _ calls after her as she heads for the back room.

 

“I need to check on the systems.” She says, curt and careful as she heads for the maintenance bay. Trying to focus her mind on Unkar Plutt’s  _ improvements  _ and not the sudden pain in her chest _. _

 

The connection rubs at her, her shields slammed up tighter than even she knew she could hold them. Terrified of what she might find if she drops them.

 

If she reached for him, for the ever present pulsing glow of him in her head… What would she fee?

 

Hatred? Despair?  _ Apathy? _

 

_ Love? _

 

Would it be worse if she felt nothing at all? Alone again, completely disconnected from him. Her heart aches at the thought. A sick stabbing in the back of her mind as she heads for the grate in the floor.

 

It doesn’t take long to find the hatch she needs, pulling a borrowed pair of goggles over her eyes as she climbs down into the grate. Something about the familiar smell of hydraulic fluid and the buzz of electricity soothing her as she sets to work.

 

It had been a close call, the sudden dash to hyperspeed nearly blowing the power core. If Poe hadn’t been on hand to help her wrestle the motivator back into neutral the distributor could have over-flowed completely, drowned them all in poison gas. 

 

She secures the junctions, hands moving on autopilot as she works. They’ll need the hyperdrive to keep steady if they’re going to keep moving. 

 

The door wooshes open behind her, sending her head jerking up. 

 

“How’s she doing?” Poe asks, jogging over to peer into the grate. The stormtrooper trailing behind him.

 

“She’ll hold.” Rey sighs, lowering her goggles and wiping her hands off on a rag. “I’ve still got to patch up the fuses but we can use the hyperdrive without fear of exploding at least.”

 

“Co’ordinates?” He asks and suddenly she has no answer.

 

Mouth falling open as she considers her options. She’s been so consumed with getting off the planet, with getting away, she’s given no thought at all to where it actually is she should go.

 

It’s not like she has a home, like she has anyone to go back too.

 

There’s no one waiting for her out there. No job, no family, no… Her heart stutters and she snaps her mouth shut, gesturing non-committally in the direction of the cockpit with the end of her magwrench.

 

“Set the course for your drop off point,” She shrugs, keeping her face aloof. In control. “I may as well get rid of you before I go any further.”

 

“Thanks Rey-bey.” His grin is blinding, shooting his fingers at her before turning on his heel. Catching sight of Finn rubbing his arms by the vent on his way out.  “You cold, buddy?” 

 

He’s shaking ever so slightly but Rey can tell from the shifting surface of his mind it’s from the left-over adrenaline more than the temperature. She watches the pilot throw his jacket at him anyway, seemingly perfectly willing to help an enemy now.

 

“Thanks, man.” Finn nods, grasping him on the arm as they pass each other.

 

She turns away, suddenly unable to bear this easy little act of kindness. Of friendship. All she can see if Jay chasing Lim around the motivator panel, Yalza sliding her peppers to Rey every Primeday lunch with her nose all wrinkled up, Zalya’s grin as she pressed a holonovel into her hands and told her to skip to chapter three for the good stuff. 

 

They were all still there, weren’t they? Had it really only been a thirty six hours since her last shift? Would they notice she was gone? 

 

She shuddered. Even if they did, she doubted there was much they could do about it. Vahna had made it very clear when she signed up that dead technicians, or missing in her case, were a risk of the job. She had probably already been hushed up. A recycled name badge. A cautionary tale.

 

Rey starts when the trooper speaks, realizing he hasn’t left with the pilot. He’s wandered over to the grate instead, crouching not far from her, his brow creased. 

 

“I know you right?” He keeps his voice low, a little flicker of recognition passing over his face. “From the Finalizer?”

 

For a moment she thinks about lying, about wiping the recollection away with her powers. But his mind has already been toyed with enough, she can feel it in the fractured lines of his thoughts. They have shaped him, sculpted his mind to their purpose… and she isn’t ready to play with it any more. Not when it’s not necessary. 

 

“I worked there as a technician for a while.” She says shortly, looking away. “Not anymore”

 

“We both got out then.” He says it with something like a smile but there’s too much seriousness behind his words for it to stick. 

 

She suddenly feels like the worst person in the galaxy.

 

A guilty wave rising in her stomach as she realizes just how tempted she still is to go back. Realizes just how much of her wants to turn this ship around at the first opportunity and race back to  _ him, _ even now, even after all that’s happened. The thought of curling up in some strange bunk without him makes her chest hurt. Of never seeing his face again. It just feels…  _ wrong. _

 

She fights it back with a vengeance. She has lived nineteen long years needing no one but herself. Surely a few months with him can’t compare to that? Can’t erase a lifetime of self sufficiency? She firms her jaw, she will soon get used to being alone again.

 

“I don’t remember seeing that on board,” Finn jerks his chin to the hilt at her waist, distracting her from the spiral of her thoughts. She glances down, fighting to keep herself from tucking it out of sight at his interest. “You some sort of Jedi or something?”

 

“Something.” She mutters, pulling down the goggles again. “Jedi’s don’t exist anymore.” 

 

She goes back to work, hoping he’ll take the hint. She doesn’t want to go any further down this road. It still hurts too much.

 

“So… Where you going now?” The hint is thoroughly untaken. Instead Finn sits back on his heels, idly prodding at the tools laid out in front of the grate as she works. “Now that you’re out and all. Gotta family waiting for you? A boyfriend? Cute boyfriend?”

 

She doesn’t have chance to answer. To laugh or cry at the ridiculous question and the equally ridiculous throb of hurt it awakens in her. She’s too busy clutching onto the side of the motivator as the ship shudders beneath them.

 

The mag-wrench slips from her fingers as they clutch onto the floor. The ship bucking and rolling beneath them as she snatches her power around their waists. Keeping them anchored, swearing under her breath as she feels Poe’s frustration from the cockpit. 

 

The moment she can move again she’s running, Finn hot on her heels.

 

“What’s wrong?” She calls, seeing Poe flicking at the switches as the ship shakes and groans.

 

“Something’s latched onto us.” He shouts back, hands straining at the controls as he fights to free them.

 

Her heart stutters.

  
  
  


 


	34. Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey is all for shooting first, but it's the questions that come after that might just be the real danger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((I'm so sorry this is so late! My stealth writing has noooooot been going to plan and, well, this chapter is kiiind of a beast! ^^;   
> I'll never be able to thank you enough for your comments and messages though - it seemed like every time I felt like giving up someone would send me some kind words and get me right back on track! Seriously - thank you! <333 (Also - Happy birthday anon! I just had to post a day early, I really hope you enjoy it! :P)   
> I'm not sure if it's gonna be regular posting next week or not, I hope so though! Fingers crossed real life cuts me a break ^^;
> 
> Rell-Rell-8, my lovely one. You deserve sunshine days for beta'ing this monster of a chapter ahahaha monster - gettit))

 

“The First Order.” Finn is the first to break the silence. His face turns ashen as the ship shudders to a halt, trapped inside a much larger vessel.

 

Her heart stops beating entirely. Forcing herself to still the pathetic rush of fear, of  _ hope.  _ Reaching out with her powers instead, wrapping them carefully around the presences. Two sentient, strongly shielded forms. Unknown but… she frowns, almost  _ familiar.  _ Something about them making the space between her eyes throb as she tries to place it.

 

Whoever they are, they’re definitely not from the First Order.

 

“No.” She waves a hand, “There’s two of them approaching the ramp, they’re not First Order but...” she scowls. Her rage suddenly flaring back to life at this inconvenience, at the fact she can’t read them. That she’s been stalled here, stuck and wasting time by the handful. 

 

“What?” Finn prompts her, Poe glancing up from the controls he’s still desperately trying to unstick.

 

“It doesn’t matter.” She touches the hilt at her waist, the reassuring brush of metal, back snapping straight as she strides towards the door. “We won’t be here long. Stay here, get ready for take off.”

 

Finn ignores her, rushing to follow her down the empty corridor.

 

“Wait in the cockpit.” She orders. Darkness rising in her with every step, ready to deal with these intruders in  _ whatever  _ way she has too.

 

Almost hoping they’ll give her a fight.

 

“Like hell.” He jogs up beside her, Poe’s blaster in his hand and determination burning in his eyes.

 

“It could be dangerous.” She whips around to face him, trying to hold onto her annoyance as her heart squeezes ever so slightly at this undeserved act of loyalty from a near stranger. At the sudden unexpected fear growing in the pit of her stomach, the uneasy thought that he might get harmed in the crossfire.

 

“You got me off that planet.” He says, chin thrust high in the air. Uncompromising even in the face of his own fear. “I’m not letting you do this alone.”

 

She bites down on the inside of her cheek and nods once. “Fine. But stay behind me.”

 

He nods his agreement, two steps behind her as she rounds the corner. The blast doors already creaking open at the end of the corridor, the intruders half falling through it, blasters raised.

 

An old man and a wookie.

 

She jerks back.

 

Out of everything she’d been expecting… this isn’t it. Not that it matters, whoever they are they’re not welcome here.

 

“Release my ship.” She demands, standing her ground.

 

The old man turns to her, dark eyes flying up to meet hers at last. There’s something unsettling in his face. A hardness in the line of his brows, the turn of his nose that sets her on edge for a reason she can’t explain. Both their minds locked tight against her as she runs her thoughts across them.

 

“ _ Your  _ ship? _ ”  _ Grey eyebrows shoot up so far they almost disappear into his hairline as he scoffs at her. “Chewie did you hear that?” He turns to the Wookie next to him who whines out a laugh. “The Millennium Falcon,  _ hers.  _ Are you even old enough to fly this thing?”

 

“I’m old enough.” Her voice is cold enough to freeze, rankling at his dismissal as he steps into the ship. Seemingly immune to the fury rolling off her in waves. Then his words catch up to her and she’s forced to step back, eyeing him in disbelief. “Wait…  _ this  _ is the Millennium Falcon?”

 

“That’s what I said isn’t it?” He scoffs, arms folding over his chest as he squints at her. Her hands clench at her sides, it’s only the shock of his boldness that keeps her from throwing them out of the blast doors with a wave of her hand. “And I’m her rightful captain, right Chewie?”

 

Chewie… 

 

_“Chewbacca.”_ She barely registers herself saying it. Suddenly she’s standing under the shade of fuel station at the outpost again, listening to the Kashyyyk traders stories about the infamous Chewbacca, first mate to the human Han Solo. Her Shyriiwook rusty but passable as they told her of the smuggler _smugglers_ looked up to. About the famous ship that was said to have made the Kessel Run in under 14 parsecs. _Legends_ all of them. “And you… _you’re_ Han Solo.”

 

She can’t quite believe it.

 

“I used to be.” He snorts, the wookie shrugging beside him. She skims the truth from his feelings, his thoughts may still be locked to her but there’s a bone-deep weariness he can’t disguise. Even shadowed as it is by a stubborn pride that makes her head hurt.

 

“The Rebellion General?” Finn frowns up at him from her side, blaster never wavering. She’s almost forgotten him in the moment.

 

“The smuggler.” She corrects him on instinct. The old man moves to push past her towards the cockpit but she plants herself in his path. Han Solo or not he’s not getting any further into her ship.

 

It’s almost… disappointing. The characters in the stories she had been told were young, fearless. This man is ancient.  _ Tired.  _ A few months ago there would have been so much she would have wanted to ask him, about his adventures. The truth behind the stories. But she’s not that girl anymore, and she has more important things to worry about than disappointing heroes and stolen ships. 

 

“Chewie throw them in a pod, we’ll drop them at the nearest inhabited planet.” The old man waves a hand, trying to shoo her out of his path again. She stops him with a look, teeth gritted tightly as he tries to take what’s hers.

 

She’s not willing to give up her new ship now.

 

“No.” 

 

His weathered forehead creases, head snapping back in disbelief. “ _ What _ did you say, kid?”

 

“I said  _ no. _ ” Her shoulders are sharp lines, the weight of the last two days turning her every nerve electric as she stands up to him. “I don’t care who you  _ were _ . This ship is  _ mine _ and I’m not giving it up.”

 

Something hard settles in his face. Blaster waving as he draws to a halt at last, head tipping back to frown at her. Imperious and arrogant. And almost familiar again. “And how exactly do you plan on stopping us?”

 

The darkness tightens in her, heart leaping at his ill-advised words. Another one who wants to underestimate her. Her hand settles at her hip, drifting back to her lightsaber, ready to take action. To prove  _ exactly  _ how she intends to do it.

 

Finn darts in front of her before she can pull it free, jabbing his blaster in the other man’s chest as the wookie lets loose a low growl of warning. “Trust me man, you do  _ not _ want to find out. I’d do as the lady says.”

 

The hallway echoes, air thickening with every second as they stand at an impasse. The man doesn’t scare her, he’ll go down easy enough. The Wookie would be more pressing, seven feet of muscle. But she trusts her power, even with the exhaustion weighing her down, she knows she can handle them.

 

“Alright big shot.” The old man pushes Finn’s blaster away with two fingers, and she feels something change in the pattern of his thoughts. His jaw tightening as he takes a half-step back, hands raised. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll drop you two, and whoever else you might have hiding away in there off at a spaceport. Myself. Make sure you get a ship,” His jaw twitches, eyes barely restrained from rolling as he adds. “A  _ good  _ one. Then we part ways as unlikely friends.”

 

He’s so  _ begrudging.  _ Like he’s doing her a favour. The darkness hasn’t settled, she can feel her pulse jumping in her throat. Everything in her wanting to force them out. To fight them, lash out with her anger. To punish them for ever thinking to underestimate her.

 

But she has a  _ duty _ now, she reminds herself, to Finn, and Poe and BB-8 too, no matter how unwillingly undertaken. She told them she’d get them back to their base in one piece. And she can hear the sense in his words, if Han has managed to track them the First Order can’t be far behind, a good clean ship would make sense. 

 

It’s that or kill them. She can feel the stubbornness in them, a rock core that tells her one way or another they’ll take her ship or die trying. This way will be the least… messy.

 

She jerks her head in a tense nod. “Fine. We have a deal.”

 

He sticks out a weathered hand. She hesitates before returning his grip uneasily, her stomach twisting at the firm shake. Skin twitching at the knowing grasp. They seem to be almost frozen there, his suspicion rolling over her, mixing with her own as they make uneasy eye contact.

 

There’s a thud in the ship above them, echoing hard through the hallways and time seems to restart.

 

“Don’t tell me a Rathtars gotten loose-” Han swears. Releasing her at last as he jerks around to rush for the door. 

 

She scrubs her hand against her shirt, trying to scrape away the feeling. The dizzying sense of deja-vu she gets every time she meets his eyes. Shadowing his steps at a careful pace as the man and wookie dash out into the bay of the huge freighter. Reaching out with her senses to feel the sudden press of minds against her own. Another ship… anger streaming off their minds in waves.

 

_ Violence. _

 

“We have company.” She whispers to Finn as they pause at the edge of the ramp. “And it’s  _ definitely  _ not friendly.” She jerks her head at Han’s back as he dashes over to the ship’s console. She can use this to her advantage. “I’ll disable the locking system whilst he’s gone. Tell Poe to be ready to fly.”

 

“Wait - you want to  _ leave  _ them here?” His disbelief washes over her, an almost childlike shock at her words. “You just made an agreement.”

 

Her face flushes, the accusation hitting her hard. He has no concept of self preservation clearly but something in his distress makes her feel almost… guilty.

 

“Do you want to get out of this alive?” She glares, stomach clenching at his words.

 

“It’s just not... honourable.”

 

She clenches her teeth so hard a muscle in her jaw spasms. Something in his quiet disappointment hitting her hard. 

 

“Fine. I will go and deal with this, just make sure Poe is ready to fly the  _ second _ we return.” She holds up a hand when he moves to protest. To go with her. “No, Finn. That’s the deal.” Turning away she can’t help but add over her shoulder. “And it’s  _ just _ them - no one else.”

 

She storms after Han, still unsure quite how she managed to pick up so many travelling companions in her short time away from the base. She seems to have an unwilling talent for attracting broken things.

 

An ironic legacy for an ex-scavenger.

 

“Where d’you think you’re going?” Han whirls around on her as she catches up. “That’s a Guavian Death Gang up there. Take the others and wait in the hold - and don’t even  _ think _ about trying to take the Falcon.”

 

She glares at him, as if that hadn’t been her exact plan moments before. The headache building behind her eyes doubles as she walks past him towards the intruders. “Shut up and move.”

 

“Hey - I don’t take orders from children!” He shouts after her. She sucks in a breath and ignores him. And the pointed comment he makes after as they follow her through the ship about head-stronged brats getting him killed.

 

Chewbacca replying with a chuckle and something her rusty Shyriiwook translates as “You’re getting too old for this friend”

 

“Who’re you calling old?”

 

-

 

The Guavian Death Gang is waiting. 

 

She stands silently at Han’s shoulders, taking stock of the situation as the meeting goes from bad to worse with each word of out Han’s mouth. She agreed to let him try to salvage the situation without violence but it’s a waste of breath as far as she’s concerned.

 

They’ve come for a  _ fight  _ and she’s more than willing to give them one.

 

At least she would be. If she wasn’t so  _ tired.  _ Her will is strong but her body seems to be determined to betray her. Focus slipping as she stands sentinel, her aching muscles reminding her that she hasn’t slept in longer than she cares to think about. That it feels like she’s been running for  _ days.  _ The village trek, the fight with Ren, the battle at Niima Outpost, everything since. She’s been going and going and going and all she wants to do is  _ stop. _

 

Sleep. 

 

Her mind slipping away, suddenly all she can think about is her quarters. His.  _ Theirs. _ A life time ago on the Finalizer. How it never seemed to matter what position she fell asleep in, she always woke up the same. Long arms wrapped around her. An almost desperate grip, keeping her trapped there, as if he was terrified she might slip away in the night. 

 

Like he had to prove she was real.

 

She didn’t mind. It made her feel… safe.  _ Wanted.  _ Those quiet moments, late in the night and early in the morning, when they could just exist. When they didn’t have to be Master and Apprentice. Commander and Technician. Roles and names and everything else forgotten.

 

In sleep they could just… Be.

 

And she really shouldn’t be thinking about it right now because there are dangerous men with blasters pointed at her, and it’s all going south faster than she can blink. She needs to regain her lagging strength. And fast.

 

She runs her fingers carefully along her side, small movements designed not to be noticed. Wincing ever so slightly as she finds her target, the half-healed graze from a training session a few days before. Bruised but sealed shut.

 

Gritting her teeth she inches up the hem of her shirt just enough to work her fingers underneath. Digging her nails in sharply.

 

_ Focus through pain.  _

 

_ Strength through suffering. _

 

The stab of pain is enough. Lifting the fog from her thoughts and letting her think clearly again. Adrenaline returning to her with her rage.

 

Five cybernetically enhanced soldiers and their more human negotiator, _ Bala-Tik _ Han calls him. The soldiers pose a problem. The hardware running through their systems making it hard to catch hold of their minds, more machine than man any more. But they’re not the worst of it.

 

There’s more waiting.

 

Han opens his mouth to argue with them but she stops him, fingers tightening around his arm as she jerks her head to the door at the other end of the corridor. She can feel another group gathering. Another six soldiers, easier to read than the first. They’re angry, she picks up echoes of thoughts in Nar Kanji. She knew a trader once from there, an ex-slave of the Jabbalogians. She knows the language well enough to know that they’ve come here for blood.

 

Her focus snaps back to the first gang as the negotiators attention shifts to her.

 

“You know I heard the First Order was looking for a Freighter like yours, Han.” Sharp eyes turn in her direction. “Said to be harbouring fugitives.” His face turns vicious, almost gleeful as he jerks the barrel of the gun at her. “Who’s the girl?”

 

She grits her teeth against the instant effect the words have on her.  That pathetic little rush of hope again. It’s ridiculous, she knows the First Order is looking for Poe. Finn too probably. The resistance pilot and the traitor storm trooper. She is a footnote, completely inconsequential to the First Order at large.

 

“Her? She’s  _ nobody _ , daughter of an old friend.” He lies,  _ badly, _ and her last nerve snaps. This has gone on long enough, and she is through with people talking for her.

 

“Stop waiting for your dramatic moment,  _ Bala-tik.”  _ She cuts over the top of them. Stepping forward as she sneers his name, picking up the threads of his insecurity over the wash of anger and excitement that clouds his minds. Rolling her eyes at his petty games. “And ask your  _ friends _ to join us already.”

 

She gestures to the blast doors and he stiffens. Dark eyes widening before he glares at her. Nodding his head at one of the soldiers. “As you wish.”

 

“ _ Kanjiklub.”  _ She hears Han curse as the door creaks open behind them, before trying to turn his ‘charm’ on the interlopers. “Tasu Leech, good to see you.”

 

As if he thinks the situation could end in any other way but with a  _ fight. _

 

More blasters. She runs the simulations in her head. Twelve heavily armed, highly trained criminals. Her, a wookie and an old man. 

 

She cracks her knuckles. Not ideal, but she can work with it.

 

First things first, even the odds.

 

She switches her gaze to the leader of the second gang, the pain still sparking through her side and adding fuel to the darkness growing inside her ribcage as she pushes past Han. Feeling a spark of irritated fear shoot over her shields as she approaches Kanjiklub.

 

The leader watches her approach, head tilted back warily, never once breaking eye contact.

 

“<You will leave this ship and forget you ever found us.>” She says firmly in Nar Kanji, feeling another little wave of shock at her words. She’s learnt the words work best when there’s warmth behind them, but she’s finding it hard to scrape up anything but fury. Channeling it into a warning instead. “<Take your men and go.>”

 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing kid?” Han hisses from behind her, blunt fingers digging into her arm tight enough to bruise. “Have you completely lost your mind-”

 

She ignores him, eyes locked with those of the leader. Pressing her will into his mind, he  _ wants _ this. She can  _ make  _ him want this.

 

For a second the only sound is the buzzing of the air vents and then he nods.

 

“<We should go.>” He repeats in the dazed tone she’s become so familiar with over her months of training. Turning away from her and gesturing to the soldiers around him. “<Come on, let’s get out of here.>”

 

Her arms shake with the effort of keeping the power fixed. Spreading her will across their minds, digging in when the second lieutenant seems about to protest.

 

“<Do as your leader says.>” She grinds out between clenched teeth, feeling the sweat bead along the back of her neck and wondering if it wouldn’t just be easier to knock them all out the old fashioned way.

 

“<I’ll do as he says.>” They turn away, retreating quietly to their ship.

 

“Where d’you think you’re going?” The Guavian negotiator shouts at their backs but it’s too late. His anger reaching new peaks, flavoured with a sudden spike of anxiety as he turns on her. “What did you do, girl?”

 

Six down, six to go. She can feel the shell-shocked wave of disbelief rolling off her new companions too. Something deeper stirring beneath their shields, she doesn’t look closer at it.

 

“You should leave too.” She says to the negotiator, fingers tightening at the saber at her waist as she draws it free. No compulsion in her voice this time, only the darkness. “While you still can.”

 

“Shoot them.” He barks.

 

She gives into it. Driving the hilt of her saber sharply into the wound at her waist before igniting it, the fresh onslaught of pain focusing her powers as her instincts kick in full force.

 

She hears Chewbacca roar through the thundering in her head as she lashes out with her powers. Hurling three of the red-suited soldiers into the wall with the full might of her rage. Rational thought deserts her, deflecting blaster fire with her saber on instinct as she rushes the gang. The sudden sharp pain of laser fire fuelling her when she’s not quite fast enough and one of the soldiers grazes her arm. Her thigh.

 

Knowing nothing but  _ adrenaline. _

 

Blood racing, face heating as she gives up control to the feeling. She’ll pay for this after she can tell, but right now it’s  _ worth it  _ to feel their shock. Their horror.

 

They’ll never have the chance to underestimate her again. 

 

A blast from Chewbacca’s bowcaster takes one out of commission for good, her lightsaber dropping two more. Another is still unconscious from the fall. Two left. She leaves the remaining soldier to the smugglers, hearing Han swearing as he fires. 

 

The negotiator is hers.

 

She comes down hard, sweeping her plasma blade through Bala-Tik’s legs. One human, one a cybernetic implant he tries to hide. Feeling his anguish as she cuts through flesh and bone and metal as if it’s butter. 

 

Drawing back she spins her blade, heart thundering in her ears as she raises it to finish him off. Seeing the understanding in his eyes, the cold fear as he realises he’s about to die.

 

Basking in the power.

 

Then someone grabs her shoulder. She jerks back, hand lifting to hurl them away with her powers. To kill them instead. Murder in her eyes as she tears away only to find a huge, leathery palm closing over her arm again. Insistently, almost... gently. Telling her with a soft whine that it’s over, the fight is won. 

 

She looks up and up into the beetle black eyes of the wookie and shuts off her blade.

 

The sudden softness of his mind coursing through her like icy water. Feeling her breath catch in her throat at what she’d almost done.

 

The difference between killing to save her own life and killing for  _ fun. _

 

“We’re leaving now.” Is all she says. Almost running back to the ship, her darkness snapping at her heels as she tries to wrestle back control of her thoughts again. To shove down the monster she keeps trapped there.

 

“Hey-” She hears the old man shout after her. “Hey - just you wait a minute-”

 

He catches up to her at the entrance to the hangar, crowding into her personal space as she tries to outrun herself again. His blaster still raised in front of him as he watches her so closely she can feel her skin crawl. Like he can see everything that’s going on inside her head.

 

“Who taught you that?” The words are drowning in suspicion, confusion beating against her shields. But there’s something else there behind the trembling anxiety, the stubborn shock, something…  _ desperate. “Who?” _

 

Suddenly she can read a name through the steel of his mind, floating to the top of his broken thoughts, bright blue and wreathed in hope.

 

“ _ Skywalker? _ ” Her eyes shoot wide in disbelief, unable to keep herself from laughing. A bitter little sound at the notion. “You think I learnt this from  _ him _ ? After what he did?”

 

She pushes the old man away, a rough shove backwards as her head reels from his assumption. She almost can’t believe it. Like she would ever train with someone who had done so much harm. A dull throb of anguish blossoming in her stomach at the name, reawakening a hatred grown on someone else’s behalf.

 

Luke Skywalker. The map. He’s the source of so much that’s gone wrong in her life. So much pain. If she never hears his name again it’ll be too soon.

 

Han’s confusion doubles, brow creasing into a sharp v as he narrows his eyes. “Look kid, I don’t know what you’ve been told but Luke Skywalker was a damned  _ hero.” _

 

“You're wrong.”  The angers returns, frightening her as it roars back into her hollow chest. But it’s lesser this time, colder. Distant. “He was a  _ murderer.  _ He killed people. He  _ destroyed  _ my- a… a friend of mine’s family.”

 

“Bullshit.” He snorts, tossing his head back and making her flinch. “Your  _ friend _ ’s a liar.”

 

“Why did he go into hiding then?” The words are quiet. Low and vicious and  _ hurt.  _

 

Hurt because a part of her  _ doubts  _ Ren, despite the horror she felt when he spoke of the man. The pain and hatred she’d tasted in her head when she confronted him about it in the forest a lifetime ago.

 

He's lied before after all.

 

_ He said he'd never leave her. _

 

“It wasn’t  _ Luke’s  _ fault!” Han shouts, raking a hand through grey hair is a movement so familiar it jars her. Then his face shutters, leaving Rey drowning in a pain that no amount of shielding could keep from her. It hits her like a punch to the chest, stumbling over herself as his dark eyes drift away from her. “He was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy, an apprentice, turned against him. Destroyed it all. Luke… felt responsible. Blamed himself for it when the boy joined the First Order...”

 

Her blood runs cold.

 

She  _ knows _ this story.

 

How many times had Jay told it in the canteen? About how Lord Ren was schooled by a corrupt Jedi master, how Snoke had saved him from it. How that was the reason he was tasked with destroying the other Jedi, why he was so loyal to the First Order. She’s heard it so many times…  

 

“Ren.” She whispers his name without thinking, gaze shooting to the airlock as if he might somehow appear. As if he could have possibly heard her, summoned across the void of space with his name alone. Another story. The exhaustion feels like it’s reached the marrow of her bones, more pieces of a puzzle so big she can’t even see the edges anymore falling into place. A confusing mess of contradictions. 

 

“What did you say?” Han’s eyes fly open, breath catching harshly in his throat and suddenly there’s the muzzle of a blaster in her face. “How do you know him?”

 

She freezes, suddenly unable to breathe as he leans even closer.

 

“ _ How do you know my son?” _

 


	35. Importance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are learnt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((My forever thanks (as always) to everyone still reading and commenting! This fic was supposed to be 8 chapters long MAX and here we are, 35 chapters and nearly 100k later and we're still going! I blame it on you guys entirely. All your fault! :P
> 
> Rell Goldblum, thank you for fighting off aliens and exhaustion to beta this for me <333
> 
> Without further ado, here is *that* scene.))

 

_“How do you know my son?”_

 

The words are ringing in her ears. For a moment she can’t make sense of them, on the verge of laughing. It’s a joke, right? Some sick, unfunny joke at her expense. There’s no way this stranger, this washed-up story, could be so closely bound to her life. There’s no way he could be another link tying her back to _him._

 

And then she _feels_ it.

 

The shields around the old man’s mind falter, falling away in his shock, his thoughts bursting through the confusion as he stares at her like he’s seen a ghost. She’s drowning in the feeling. The stunned, soul-deep horror, unable to turn away as his memories flood her mind.

 

_Ren._

 

All she can see is Ren.

 

No… _Ben._ This child is named Ben Solo.

 

It’s the same face she knows, just younger, softer. He’s everywhere. Childhood smiles melting into teenage anger. Ears and elbows and anguish. Watching it all through someone else’s eyes as the man she knows is slowly shaped in front of her in disjointed flashes that has her head pounding.

 

She can’t pull herself away.

 

She has to know _more._

 

She snaps what’s left of her power around the wookie, holding him back as her hands reach for Han’s mind. Digging deeper and deeper into his thoughts. _The truth._ She needs the truth. Hearing him shout out against her as she sinks herself into his head, his protests soon drowned out by the _fighting._ The screaming and crying and those brief early bursts of _laughter_ that fill his thoughts.

 

She sees _everything._ Han’s early moments of joy, the fractured, faulted marriage with a Princess he thinks he could never deserve. Feels the startled, terrified _love_ when he first holds the child in his arms.

 

The fear when an angry eight year old hurls a datapad across the room with his mind.

 

The horror when he realizes his son isn’t normal. The growing, uncomfortable distance as Han finds more reasons to leave. To stay away. Even as he tells himself it’s for the best. What use could he be to a child like that?

 

It’s better if he’s gone. Better if he leaves it to Leia.

 

She sees the walls building up behind the boy’s eyes, feels Han’s _relief_ when Ben’s sent away to his uncle. There’s even less reason to stay now. Han has to go. Has to keep moving. The distance between them growing as the boy offers less and less of his true self to his father through holovids and messages. Only the show of it. The shell.

 

And then the child (The boy? The man?) is gone completely and all that’s left is the _feelings._

 

The hollow swallowing guilt at what his son has become.

 

Of what Han has _made_ him.

 

She’s sick to her stomach with it, heart twisting with the man’s fear, his _disappointment_ . The distaste for his own blood. The self-sure knowledge that he had failed his child, the brash determination to blame it on someone else. Anyone else. His wife’s family. Vader. _Anyone_ but him.

 

She’s trapped in his mind, eaten alive with the acid in his thoughts.

 

Harshly, she digs her nails into her scalp, tears burning down her face as she tries to shake the feelings off. Tries to pull back, ripping herself away from the poison in the man’s head as she stumbles back into reality. Heart beating hard enough to bruise.

 

“What did you do?” Han roars, reaching for her. She jerks away from the touch, shaking so hard she can barely stand it. Her face twisting in disgust as she tries to ground herself. Center herself from what she’s seen. “What did you _see_ ? _Tell me how you know Ben.”_

 

“I don’t.” She bites out without meaning too, hands clenched so tight her nails draw blood. “I don’t know _Ben Solo.”_

 

Because the boy in the visions is not the man she knows. Even the name feels wrong to her. He’s a version perhaps, a might-have-been, a scared, angry slice of himself but the child Han knew is only an edge of the man he is now. A beginning.

 

Ren is so much more than the damaged son of a smuggler and a princess. The terrified grandson of Darth Vader, or disappointing nephew of Luke Skywalker… the man he blamed for everything. His past is so convoluted, so _toxic_ it’s making her dizzy.

 

Her heart is beating so hard she can taste it. Making her glad for the first time in her life that she has no idea who her own parents are.

 

Parents…

 

He said he had no parents.

 

_Didn’t he?_

 

They’d been so consumed in the moment they’d never really talked about it, it didn’t seem to _matter_ then. She tries to recall the moments, the few brief times they had touched upon Ren’s life before. Feeling his anguish, his bitter anger rising up in her head, colouring the memories. How much had he _actually_ said? How much had been her filling in the blanks with her own ideas about what had happened, matching emotions to imagination?

 

She turns from the waiting smugglers, the ones still staring at her in horrified confusion. Hating how ragged her voice has become. How _cold_ . “I know… someone else.”

 

“ _Kylo Ren._ ” Han snorts and, even through the fear, the raw anger, she can hear the contempt in his voice. Hear the guilt as he adds in a mutter, “Stupid name.” Then his eyes shoot back to her, breath coming in angry pants as he holds up a hand to ward Chewbacca off when he moves to intercept her at the door. The barrel of the blaster coming up again, jammed so close to her face she can smell the ozone. “Now answer the damn question. Who the hell are you? First Order?”

 

For a moment she doesn’t know who she is. So swept up in everything else she can barely remember herself.

 

Then she hears someone calling her name, the sound skipping her ears completely and hooking itself directly under her ribs. _Ren._ For a moment she thinks he’s there, her head filled with the familiar pull of his power. His anger, his _concern._ Her heart jumps into her throat, mouth falling open in shock as she turns to him… to find noone there.

 

She remembers herself. The desert, the Finalizer. All of the heartbreaks and happiness that have made her. Her shoulders hitching, straightening as she pushes back into reality. Forcing her new stolen pain down into whatever dark corner of her mind is still empty enough to take it, locking herself away from it.

 

“I’m not with the First Order.” She says honestly, her allegiance was never to them after all. Back ramrod straight as she lifts her chin, meeting Han’s eye as an equal. She will not be intimidated by anyone, not now. Not again. “I am- _was-_ Lord Ren’s apprentice.”

 

As if that could cover it. As if she could ever tell this man exactly what she had been too his _son._

 

“ _Apprentice?_ ” His eyes turn wide, scoffing at the very notion. Then a fear settles in him, a deep primal fear that she can’t fathom even as it washes over her. Quiet and corrosive. “Wait - ‘ _was’_ ? What do you mean _‘was’_ \- did something… is he...?”

 

The panic is just as real as everything else. All the disappointment, the anger, the _love_. The self-loathing his son has inherited in spades. Splintering over her fragile nerves.

 

He thinks his son is dead.

 

That _that’s_ why she’s here.

 

Her heart stutters, suddenly bleeding for this broken man as well. Hating him even as her stomach squeezes in sympathy at the feeling. The incomprehensible _terror_ of a man who thinks he might have lost his only child. She tries to stave it off, to keep her face steady, impassive. Tries to keep her weakness from showing.

 

“He remains with the First Order. That’s all you need to know.” Is all she says, turning on her heel as his relief floods through her. Closing her shields against him. “We’re done here.”

 

Finn is waiting on the ramp, looking about ready to charge out after her as she approaches. The smugglers close on her heels - Han already protesting her half answers.

 

“Listen sister, you don’t get to do _that_ and walk awa-”

 

Impulsive, impetuous Finn, chin shoved high in the air intercepts them. His borrowed blaster rising as Han tries to grab hold of her again.

 

“Back up, man.” He warns before turning his attention to her, concern lighting his eyes. “Rey - what happe- wait, are you _bleeding?_

 

His compassion is a far off pulse she staves off with a shudder. She has already felt too much today, she doesn’t think she can take any more. She glances down at her arm, the blaster graze seeping red. A quick assessment proves she has a similar cut on her thigh, the training wound at her side dampening her shirt as well. Minor hurts. Nothing compared to the burning inside her chest.

 

“It’s fine.” She brushes his worry off, jaw trembling from the effort of keeping it all inside. Of keeping her guard up. “It’s been taken care of. We’re leaving now.”

 

“Them too?” His eyes narrow at them suspiciously. Another little bit of loyalty she doesn’t deserve.

 

She turns her eyes to them. The broken father, the hurt best friend. Cursing her own softness she gives a harsh nod. “We had a deal. If they still want the ship it’s theirs when we have new transport.”

 

“You heard the lady, on the ship, Solo.” He jerks his head sharply as they storm up the ramp, eyes widening as the Wookie lets out a low rumble of warning at him. “Mr Chewbacca.”

 

“This conversation isn’t finished, kid.” Han shouts after her, still following her as she strides into the corridor away from them, almost running smack bang into Poe.

 

He’s standing in the corridor outside the cockpit, BB-8 at his heels. Obviously grown tired of waiting for her too.

 

“We were about to launch a rescue mission.” He jokes, but his good humour slips ever so slightly as he sees the smugglers following her. His eyes turning defensive, cold as the ramp seals shut behind them. “Han Solo.”

 

“Who the hell are you?” Han snaps at him, his mind has grown spikes. Blades. She struggles against the weight of it, forcing her shields up against them all.

 

“I’m Poe Dameron, I work with the Resistance under Gener-”

 

“Enough.” She throws up her hands, not caring why Poe has suddenly turned frosty at the sight of them. “Remember our deal, Solo, set the coordinates for the nearest planet with a spaceport. Poe, contact whoever you need to with the Resistance and get them to meet you there. Finn… go with Poe. I- I’m done with this.”

 

“Wait - That was before I knew-” The old man starts but she silences him with a warning look so dark he physically flinches.

 

“Just. Do. It.” It’s taking every inch of her control to keep herself steady. To keep herself from falling apart in front of these _strangers._ Poe snaps off a smart salute and turns back to the cockpit, Chewbacca hurrying after him.

 

Finn and Han aren’t so easy to move.

 

Fluttering concern from one, horrified curiosity from the other.

 

“I will be in the maintenance bay.” She says, cold. Firm. Brooking no arguments. “Don’t disturb me until we arrive.”

 

She leaves before they can protest. Wishing she could leave her feelings behind her with them. That she could shut it all out as she’d seen Ren do.

 

_Ren._

 

Everything has changed in an instant and for the first time in her life she doesn’t know what to do about it.

 

She suddenly wants to tell someone - anyone - everything. How much she’s hurting, how he’s so much more than Han fears. How there’s so much goodness left in him, so much darkness too. How she’d give almost anything to see his face again no matter how much she tells herself she doesn’t want him. No matter how much she tells herself she can’t forgive him for abandoning her.

 

It’s not even like she went into it with her eyes shut. She _knew_ what Ren was from that first day. She knew about the darkness inside of him, saw every messed up emotion and twisted reaction and she _loved_ him anyway.

 

He lied to her.

 

And it doesn’t change anything.

 

Not really.

 

Not inside of her.

 

She loves him.

 

And suddenly she hates him too.

 

Hates him like she’s hated no one else. Not Plutt, not her parents, no one. She hates him for making her feel like this. For stripping her of her senses, making her hurt like this. For making her _need_ him and then destroying it all.

 

For opening her eyes to just how much darkness she’s been hiding.

 

She shuts the blast doors, tripping the fuse to keep it shut behind her, pulling up the grate and dropping into the maintenance hatch below. Curling up amongst the engine parts, letting the familiar whine of machinery wash over her. Head dropped back against the wall as she breathes in the faint smell of hydraulic fuel and metal, giving into the exhaustion.

 

Letting herself fall apart, just a little. Just for now.

 

-

 

It starts with little things.

 

Phantom pains he can’t quite place. His side twinges, his arm, his thigh. Little hurts that aren’t quite his own as he paces back and forth through his quarters on the shuttle, the data-panel set back in the wall whirring as he searches the universe for her. An anger rising in him, a darkness that breeds in on itself. Growing and changing as he waits.

 

Restless. Unable to stop, to sleep, without _her_.

 

He can feel the ordered chaos of the troopers in the cockpit, demanding updates every few minutes from them. Feel the far off buzz of the surrounding contingency of ships, ones he would rather be without. He wants to be alone for this, unaccompanied when he snatches her back up. A selfish, seething desire that’s no longer an option. He can’t send the troops back without raising suspicion, not now.

 

Besides the extra eyes searching for the ship might enable him find her sooner.

 

Maker, please let him find her soon.

 

The comm from the main command starts flashing, cutting through his concentration. He’s reaching to grab it when a feeling hits, so hard he can practically feel his ribs splintering beneath it.

 

Unable to see, _breathe,_ through the sudden chaos inside of him.

 

The ringing emptiness in his head where she should be is suddenly alive again. For a moment all he can feel is the bliss of the connection, the relief of it as her shields fall away, almost enough that he can see her. _Feel_ her. But then the rest comes through, emotions rushing in like the tide. Driving him to his knees.

 

It’s too much. This new wave of anguish. He can’t make sense of it - no whole words or images to seize onto, just a fractured storm of feelings so raw they make him gasp. Hurt. Anger. Confusion. A betrayal that rips the ground out from under him. An exhaustion that takes possession of his bones.

 

Wherever she is she’s _suffering._

 

And it’s all his fault.

 

The guilt is unbearable.

 

He drags himself back to his feet, stretching his powers across the void to her. Desperately trying to catch hold of the flagging pulse of her power as it stutters, drifting away from him with each second. She’s close. Closer than he thought. He throws everything he has into the connection, balancing on the edge of success when the door whirrs open and the connection breaks beneath his fingers.

 

“Commander Ren.” The troop-liaison officer has made a fatal error. “General Hux is on the comms, he is requesting your presence on StarKiller Base sir.”

 

Ren snaps. No thought left in him, the intruder flying effortlessly to his hand when he reaches for him. Neck straining beneath the leather of his gloves as he _squeezes._

 

“Srrr -  Gen...rl… Hsh-” The officer slurs, still trying to deliver his message. Ren can feel his fear pulsing in his head, taking a savage pleasure in his horror as he crushes the life from him, a just revenge for what he’s done. For making him lose her _again._ “Sup… reee L… der…”

 

The choked out words stop him, dropping the lesser man to the floor.

 

“ _What did you say?”_

 

“The- The Supreme Leader-” He gasps when his breath returns, clawing at the floor, eyes bulging, a vein jumping in his temple like an engine. “Message from the Supr-”

 

_“Get out.”_

 

The man scrabbles to comply. The door sealing tightly shut behind him as Ren smashes his fist into the wall, the metal denting beneath his hand. Knuckles splitting beneath his glove.

 

The Supreme Leader.

 

He tries to school his temper, push down the new wave of fear that’s rising up from his gut. Calming his voice into impassivity, the commlink still flashing angry red as he opens the line.

 

“Ren - where are you?” The nasal whine of the General sets his teeth on edge, a pale blue holo flickering to life over his screen as he appears. Forcing Ren to fight his every instinct to snarl at the man as he struggles to keep himself together. “Your presence is required on StarKiller at _once,_ leave this chase to the troopers and report back. The Supreme Leader wishes to-”

 

“I’m in the middle of a mission, General.” The words are growled out through his teeth, made even more feral by the modulator in his mask. The rage still dangerously close to the surface. “The Supreme Leader will understand that I cannot simply abandon it on _your_ word.”

 

If he has to go back now she could slip even further away. His breath catches, shallow, ragged little pants as he tries to get enough oxygen into lungs that are suddenly too small for him. Using every inch of his power to keep it from showing. Thankful once more for the anonymity of the mask.

 

“This is unacceptable - he has specifically requested we attend him in the assembly chamber at--”

 

The panic throbs, growing louder and louder in his head with each word. He can’t do it, he can’t turn around now, not when he’s so close.

 

“Enough, General. It can wait.” He jabs his thumb into the button, killing the call.

 

This is the height of foolishness.

 

He has never defied a direct order from his master before, not like this. But there’s no other option for him now, no matter how much the decision twists in him. Cutting him up from the inside, tearing apart along the seams as he fights between his loyalties.

 

This is more important.

 

 _Rey_ is more important.

 

And after it’s done, when she is safe and secure by this side, _then_ he’ll pay his fealty to his Master. The Supreme Leader will surely understand that this minor act of insubordination is in the service of the greater good.

 

And if he doesn't… well, there’s a part of him, the truly, brutally _honest_ part that _doesn’t care._

 

He has dedicated himself to restoring the balance of the galaxy at his Master's side, getting revenge for his Grandfather and completing his legacy. He has striven to bring order to a chaotic universe. But now… now he’s struggling to remember his convictions. To remind himself that the First Order is the true path, that it’s his destiny.

 

What use is an ordered galaxy if _she_ isn’t in it?

 

What use is anything?

 

The commlink crackles again - the line flashing with the designation of the troop transport at the head of the fleet **.** Phasma.

 

He jams it open with an unsteady breath.

 

“Report.”

 

“Sir - we have new intel.” Her voice filters through the unsteady connection, the words making his heart pulse with a sudden sharp hope.  “We’ve managed to lock on to the freighter's auxiliary tracking system. Their trajectory suggests a course for a planet in the mid rim, most likely Takodana. We can intercept at 15:00 hours. Orders?”

 

“Stay in pursuit, but make no move to attack.”

 

Snoke can wait.

 

His path is true.

  
  
  
  



	36. Falling Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day before the night after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((*So Close* plays on repeat. Okay - okay so this chapter had to happen and well, I hope you guys aren't too disappointed by it aaaaand I really hope I'll still get to see some of you next week for - uhm... things! ;-) Things that will happen! Anyway! Thanks to everyone still with me on this <333 You're the best!
> 
> Rock'n'Rell - Babe thanks for everything on this one *breathes deeply* *Repeats: "I am the ender of my own chapters"* :-P ))

  


 

She doesn’t sleep, not really, but she rests and that’s enough. Almost human by the time they drop out of lightspeed, dragging herself out of her hiding place and deeper into the ship. Half a thought fixed on the four presences in the cockpit, making sure they stay where they are as she explores.

 

There’s a small wash room behind the maintenance bay. She lays claim to it, cleaning herself up as best she can. Patching up her blaster wounds with an ancient med-kit and swapping her blood-stained shirt for a borrowed grey tunic she finds in the back of the storage locker. It’s a remnant from another time, the bright-blue gang mark of the Irving Boy’s scrawled across the forearm from some past mission. She rips the sleeves off.

 

She’s done with wearing uniforms.

 

Belting the too-long tunic about her waist she turns her attention to the snarled mess of her hair, meeting her gaze in the stained mirror at last. The person looking back is a stranger to her. Deathly pale but strangely... calm. Still. Like someone’s carved her out of stone. The only evidence of her turmoil written in red-veins across her eyes.

 

Her hands clench in the fabric of her borrowed cowl as she looks away. _His_ cowl. Untying it from her belt at last. She should leave it here, fold it up and drop it in the disposal. Or the lockers. Some hidden place she could bury it, store it away where it can never remind her of him again.

 

So she can start afresh. Alone.

 

Her knuckles are white against the coarse black fabric. Clenched so tight it’s weave will be imprinted into her fingertips for hours. She unfurls it almost angrily, looping the long length around her shoulders and trying to ignore how instantly comforting it feels. It still smells like the Finalizer.

 

Like _him._

 

She tells herself it’s practical, the long length of the cape hides her weapon after all, but she can’t shake the feeling that the truth is far more sentimental. That she’s still not ready to let him go yet, even now.

 

Turning away she let’s the thought drift away, focusing her mind forward instead as she strides towards where the others wait. The droid is the first to spot her, whistling a greeting that silences the angry sound of conversation as she approaches. The sudden stilted hush telling her that she was most likely the topic.

 

She doesn’t care.

 

“Rey-” Finn jumps up immediately, offering her his seat, but she waves him back. They won’t be here long, her fingers tightening around the back of his headrest as the planet fills the viewport. The surface rushing up to greet them.

 

It’s beautiful. An ancient, towering castle standing proudly from an endless forest, trees stretching as far as she can see. Dozens upon dozens of ships parked in the forests many clearings.

 

But it’s painful too. It looks too much like another place, another planet.

 

Han doesn’t say anything, sitting hunched over the controls with Chewbacca at his side. An easy dance as they lock into the landing sequence. She can feel his tension though, the turmoil bottled up inside him, ready to blow at any minute. The curiosity is still there too, a hundred burning questions sitting just behind the old man’s lips. The desperate need to know more about the son he’s disowned.

 

She has a hundred of her own, but she keeps silent.

 

It’s Poe that breaks the silence.

 

“Why’d you do it?” He asks her so suddenly she finds herself jolting. Something uncharacteristically serious flickering over his face as he looks up at her from his seat. “I’m sorry, I just gotta know - why did you destroy the map?”

 

“Map?” Han’s head shoots up, his eyes narrowing as Chewie whines at him to watch the controls. “What _map_?”

 

“The map to Skywalker.” Poe’s voice turns frosty and Rey realizes whatever differences lie between the two men they are far from over. Poe is practically pouting. “We found the last piece, something you’d _know_ if you’d ever bothered to contact-”

 

“I told you, stay out of my business, kid.” He snarls back before his eyes snap wide, fixing on her incredulously. “Wait… _She_ had the map to Luke? Jeez, this day gets better and better.” A sudden swoop of second-hand frustration prickles at her, a fresh hostility and… sadness too. Guilt at being so cut off from the man she knows he once called brother. “At least she didn’t kill him.” He adds under his breath.

 

Finn’s interest spikes, confusion playing over his face as he turns to her. Brow furrowing as he joins the conversation. “I thought Luke Skywalker was a myth?”

 

“He may as well be.” She replies quietly, the hushed words silencing the others more effectively than if she’d shouted them.

 

She bites her tongue. There’s no way she can tell them the truth. Explain to them that she destroyed the map because of a vision. That she did it to save the life of the man she… that she did it to save a life. A _lot_ of lives.

 

Han has already written his son off as lost to the darkness. Poe’s from the Resistance, the very people who would most like to see him dead, and Finn… well… he knows of Ren’s reputation first hand. All any of them know of him is the mask.

 

None of them know the man.

 

“I had my reasons for destroying it.” She says finally. Feeling the frustrated thrum of disappointment at her stilted reply. She doesn’t wait for them to argue with her though, to push for more, turning instead as the ship shudders to a halt at last. Glad to leave them behind as the ramp drops.

 

They wouldn’t understand. No one could.

 

Not even the one she’d done it to try and save.

 

She can’t regret it though, not even now. Ren can hate her, betray her, destroy her, but he’s alive.

 

She’s alive.

 

Life can go on.

 

“Where you gonna go now then?” Finn asks from her elbow, half jogging to keep pace as she heads out into the green. “When you get your ship?”

 

“Finn here’s gonna join the Resistance.”Poe dashes after them, nudging the ex-stormtrooper with his elbow and eliciting an oof of surprise. “If our transport ever makes it that is. You’re more than welcome to join us y’know, even if you do seem to have a bit of a knack for destruction. We could always use more good pilots, and... people with magic light swords.”

 

“I never said I’d join the Resistance, man.” Finn grumbles, pushing the other man away with an easy camaraderie. “I just want to get as _far_ away from the First Order as I can.”

 

She feels his shudder like it’s her own, he’s so grateful to be free. So terrified of returning.

 

“It’s not for me.” She says.

 

She’s done playing by other people’s rules, for other people's causes. From now on she’s making her own decisions.

 

Following her own path.

 

Even if she has no idea where it might lead her yet.

 

Han thrusts a blaster at Finn, checking Poe is similarly armed with a rough nod. Rey can see him contemplating offering her one too before his eyes catch on the hilt of her saber, thinking better of the offer.

 

“Come on then.” He grumbles, begrudgingly shepherding them away from the ship. Waving a hand at Chewie as they leave, the wookie staying behind to pick over the engines. “Let’s get this over with. And whatever you do - don’t stare.”

 

“At what?” Finn’s brow creases even as he runs through the safety checks of his borrowed blaster with a well oiled-precision. Ever the soldier.

 

“ _Anything.”_

 

Han’s warning is well founded.

 

Stepping through the front door of the castle is like stepping into another _universe._ Suddenly finding herself the centre of a crush of people unlike any she’s ever known. Not the steady ordered weight of the Finalizer, or the irritated crowd at the outpost. This is… different. There’s so much laughter, music, the distant sound of fighting.

 

This is _life._

 

It presses in around her. Fascinating and overwhelming at the same time.

 

“ _Han Solo._ ”

 

The words ring out across the room, bringing silence crashing down around them. A tiny, amber-skinned alien with a voice like smooth milk drags them into the whirlwind, the sound returning as she peppers Han with questions about the missing wookie. Pulling them into her world.

 

“Well if you’re here, I assume you need something. _Desperately._ ” She laughs, fixing him with a gaze so deep Rey can’t even begin to fathom it. The strange woman’s aura unlike anything she’s ever felt before. “Let’s get to it.”

“We need a clean ship, Maz.” Han says, rubbing the back of his neck. Still trying his hardest to appear nonchalant.

 

“ _They_ need a clean ship.” Poe interjects with his easy-grin. “I need a drink.”

 

“Oh I know your type, young man.” Maz laughs, stretching up on her tiptoes to grab at his cheek, pulling him down to her level by his dimples as she smirks at him. “The bar is over there, go. Spend your credits.”

 

Released, Poe vanishes with a smirk of his own. Finn hesitating behind her. Torn between who to follow before firming his feet. Standing staunchly at her shoulder and making her heart squeeze.

 

“I know _you_ too, Han.” Maz says once the crowd has closed around them again, pointing a finger at him. “I see you have the Falcon back, so _why_ do you come to me for another ship?”

 

“It’s not for me.” He slaps a palm to his chest in feigned outrage, “I’m doing a good deed for the kids.”

 

He jerks his thumb back towards Rey, making her startle at the sudden scrutiny as the alien turns her wide eyes to her. Something about the power in them makes Rey shiver, even though the bottle-thick lenses. Wondering _just_ what she’d see if she looked closer. She takes a step back, but before she can say anything Han interjects.

 

“So tell me,” he prompts, impatient as ever. “Who’s trading?”

 

“Hmm, let me see what I can find for you.” Maz nods, the heavy weight of her gaze lingering a second too long on Rey as she gestures to an empty table.  “You sit, eat. Don’t disrespect my hospitality.”

 

“Hospitality we’ll be paying for.” Han grumbles even as he complies. Maz sweeping away as they pull up chairs around the battered table. Food and drink soon appears, Poe not far behind it, but Rey doesn’t linger for long.

 

The noise is becoming too much, too many minds fighting for space against her own. She rises unsteadily to her feet, waving Finn back as he tries to follow.

 

“I’ll be back in a minute.” She promises, pushing away from the crowd towards the little bit of empty space at the edge of the room. Stumbling through the archway there as a cool breeze washes over her, soothing her nerves. She follows it without thinking, one hand pressed against the cold stone wall as her feet trace an almost familiar path deeper into the castle.

 

Almost as if something’s calling her down there. A silent pull of power.

 

It ends in an old storage room, dark and dusty and _wonderful._ A treasure trove of salvaged goods that makes the scavenger in her soul leap as she runs her hands over half-broken machinery and crates full of mysterious items. The kind of stuff she’d never trade for portions unless she _really_ had to. Beautiful, _personal_ things.

 

Her feet stop in front of a low table, fingers stalling over the top of a worn box. The wood is so dark it’s almost black, the carvings long since rubbed into incomprehensibility by time. There’s an odd trace of power to it, something almost familiar. _Nostalgic._ She can’t stop herself from reaching for the latch, remembering the old myths from the outpost about the _first_ scavenger.

 

The early desert-child who grew too curious for her own good, who climbed up into the realm of the gods and unleashed all of the world’s miseries from a box labelled ‘do not touch.’

 

The gods had turned her into a steelpecker for her crime. Forced to scavenge forever through the Jakku wastes for eternity.

 

A stark reminder to all who followed her to only salvage the unwanted and abandoned.

 

She shakes her head, clearing the half-forgotten ghost story as the lid creaks open in her hand, a shaft of light working it’s way through the dusty air to illuminate the contents.

 

It’s a lightsaber. Like hers only… not. Different somehow. _Familiar._

 

She pulls it free, a strange jolt rushing through her arm at the contact. A short snap of memories dancing over her mind along with a deep rush of… _sadness._

 

She hears screaming. Laughing. Three generations of sad-eyed boys losing themselves to the things they thought they needed most. Power. Family. Belonging. It’s over almost before it’s begun, leaving her blurry eyed as she stares unseeing into the middle distance.

 

She knows whose lightsaber this was.

 

“You found it then.” The weary sigh startles her from her reverie, heart jumping violently in her chest as she turns to see Maz looking up at her, the weight of the ages in her eyes. “I thought you might.”

 

“This is…” The words fall without Rey’s permission, eyes fixing on the metal hilt in her hand even as her mind spirals backwards in time. Remembering the metal case far back on the Finalizer with the empty space in the centre.

 

“Luke Skywalker’s.” she nods,  “And his father’s before him. Yours now, I think.”

 

“No,” she replies without hesitation, the slender hilt suddenly heavier than it has any right to be in her hands. “It was stolen, it belongs to… a friend of mine.”

 

A small hand, warm and worn and creased like a walnut, covers hers over the weapon. The steady calm of the other woman’s mind washing through her. “This is not a weapon for the Dark Side, child. This was made for the _Light._ ”

 

Her head shoots up at the understanding in her voice. She _knows._ Somehow this woman knows about Ren, about his connection to the saber, _everything_. Although not enough to recognize the darkness in Rey’s own chest it seems. A startling oversight.

 

Rey pulls her hand away, knuckles turning white around the stolen hilt.

 

“I don’t believe that.” She replies, voice shaking with quiet determination. Furious and exhausted in equal measures by the universes determination to divide everything straight down the middle. Dark and Light. Good and Bad. The First Order and the Resistance. “The Dark Side, the Light. Life isn’t _like_ that, it’s not so… so _neat.”_

 

The old woman reaches up to her goggles, the lenses clicking and clacking as she pulls them back. One after another until she’s looking at her at last with an unfiltered gaze.

 

It’s like  looking into the furthest reaches of space. The still, timeless weight of worlds Rey can’t even begin to imagine burning in their depths. Endless hours of happiness and sadness and _suffering._

 

“Dear child,” She says, the words hushed, _pleading_ in a way Rey never expected. “The Light still calls to you. Let it _guide_ you. You may yet find what it is you’re searching for.”

 

_What she’s searching for?_

 

Rey scoffs, jerking backwards like she’s been shocked. She knows exactly what it is she’s spent her whole life looking for. Belonging. Affection. _Love._ She knows exactly what she has already found and _lost._

 

This… this _stranger,_ for all her kind eyes and steady power, has no idea about the darkness that lives in Rey’s chest. About the solitary future that’s waiting in the wings for her.

 

She can’t stand it.

 

The metal hilt in her hand starts to _burn_ and she has to turn away, offering some impolite dismissal as she takes her leave. Half-running back up the stairs towards the noise of the bar. She tucks the lightsaber into her belt, out of sight, out of mind, as she pushes through the crush. Catching the eye of her party as she passes. The three men sitting uneasily together in the eye of the storm, drinking silently as they eye each other up.

 

It might be funny if she wasn’t so desperate to be gone from there.

 

She needs air, real air. Empty space. Pushing past them when they try to engage her.

 

“Hey - wait just a minute there-” She hears Han through the heavy beat of her pulse in her ears, “Where d’you think you’re-” He’s scrabbling after her, the others following quickly in his wake as she elbows her way from the crowd.

 

There’s too many of them, too _much._ It makes it harder for her to breathe, chest tightening in a vice grip. With one final shove she breaks free, almost stumbling out into the open air. Sucking in a lungful of pure, sweet air before the others catch up with her. Letting the open forest calm her, settle the angry pulse that has built up inside her ribs.

 

“We still have things to talk abou-” Han shouts as they trail after her, his words dying off into sudden silence.

 

She turns to frown at him, waiting for the inevitable admonition. The argument they’re all still circling. Only he’s not looking at her at all, his attention fixed elsewhere, his eyebrows drawn tight together as he stares up at sky in confusion. She follows his gaze instinctively.

 

There’s red in the sky.

 

Bright red, like fresh blood streaked between the clouds. For a moment she thinks it’s a shooting star, only it’s not, it’s _wrong._ The trail is too bright, too long. It’s _different._ Beautiful and strangely terrifying in its otherness.

 

“What the hell?” Poe murmurs, his voice filtering through the sudden silence as they all fix their attention upwards.

 

Finn swallows hard, a dull pulse of disbelief coursing over her shields as he takes it in. Suddenly awash in his abject _horror._

 

“The First Order.” He says, voice strangled, breathless. “They’ve done it. They’ve fired it…”

 

_Starkiller._

 

She barely has time to register the words before her mind gets washed away from her _._ Drowning in a sudden pulse of terror. She’s lost in it. The soul destroying fear of more people than she’s ever imagined existed in the galaxy. The sky blisters, washing red in a silent explosion that prickles under her skin.

 

_She feels them die._

 

Hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of people. A sudden silence that knocks the air from her lungs. An absence of something that she always took for granted was there driving her to her knees.

 

-

 

The planet is in view.

 

She’s close.

 

_So close._

 

He’s so consumed with the search, with the crippling insecurity about what awaits him on the planet surface, that it takes him a moment to realize the terror bubbling inside his chest isn’t entirely his own. That the voices crying out inside his head are external, _other._

 

He whips around, eyes turning to the viewport. To the bright red streak that’s splitting the cosmos in an ugly gash through the stars, the understanding is instantaneous. Bracing himself for the inevitable impact, bones crunching as he squeezes his hands into fists as the ringing silence strikes.

 

The sudden empty void where life should be.

 

_Starkiller._

 

The meeting with the Supreme Leader, Hux, _this_ is what it’s all come too. For a second he tries to imagine the unimaginable, the death of the New Republic. Not as an airy, imperial concept but as a series of fractured pictures. Seeing again all the places he grew up.

 

The memories he forgets aren’t _his_ anymore.

 

The gardens outside the council chambers on Hosnia Prime where he used to play whilst his mother was in meetings. The fountain in the courtyard with the bright, trapped fish. Shiny, empty apartments. School rooms.

 

The runway at the edge of the city where he’d wait for his father’s ship to return.

 

Forgotten, familiar places turned to dust in the blink of an eye.

 

His mother.

 

Is she dead too?

 

Destroyed in the same way as her own home planet had been.

 

Has the First Order finally eradicated every trace of the boy he’d been?

 

He can’t contemplate it, storing the sickening horror of it all away in the shadowed place in his mind he has reserved for this sort of waking nightmare. He must force himself to move forward instead.

 

All that’s left to him now is the future.

 

_Rey._

 

He reaches for her mind again, only letting himself breathe when he catches hold of her. She’s there, waiting, a dim, wavering pulse at the end of the invisible rope that binds them. The one he’d willingly hang himself with.

 

Only she’s not alone.

 

With each mile closer he feels more. Picking up new threads of life. The traitor, the fighter and… there’s someone else too… Someone he wasn’t expecting.

 

_Han Solo._

 

So there are remnants of the boy left after all then. For half a heartbeat he feels something that’s almost _grateful_ for it _. Relieved._ But then the darkness washes back in, the bitter hatred for this particular remnant of his past. For the man who loved machines more than his own flesh and blood.

 

A burning, blistering panic that rushes in in it’s wake.

 

What has he said to Rey? What as he _done?_

 

Has he poisoned her against him too?

 

Static cuts through the thought, the panicked rush of it. The open commlink crackling as Phasma barks directives to the troops, the ships falling into order as they descend in formation. The planet rushing closer and closer until it’s all he can see.

 

Pulling himself together he straightens his surcoat, unclenching his fingers to punch open the direct line to Phasma’s ship. Telling her in a strained, shallow voice to focus on their mission.

 

The troops are there to apprehend the traitor and destroy the resistance. The woman… the woman with them is not to be harmed.

 

The Captain’s shock is a distant throb, a traitorous wash of unease she quashes as he repeats the order. On penalty of death, with all the authority of the First Order. The woman with the black cowl is not to be so much as _touched._

 

Not by anyone but him.

  
  
  



	37. Crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inevitable collision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((I'm so so sorry for the wait guys - I just wanted to make sure this chapter was the best it could be before posting! I don't wanna let anyone down with this particular... event hehe ^^;  
> Thank you so much for sticking with me - I can't tell you how much I appreciate it! Annnnd without further ado... I just... I realllly hope you enjoy this ;-)
> 
> Star Wars Rellerbration - thanks for beta'ing buddy! You are the bestest! <3))

  
  


 

 

She climbs unsteadily back to her feet. Ignoring the hands that shoot out to help her as the Force rushes back in, filling up the hollow void where  _ life  _ had been. Re-balancing the universe the way it has always done.

 

“The New Republic.” Finn is saying, ashen faced, his horror echoing quietly at the edges of her mind. “I didn’t think they’d actually…”

 

The scream of engines cuts him off. Snatching at their attention as the sky fills with ships, TIE fighters, transporters, a far-off black blur with wings like a moth that Rey can’t fail to recognize on sight. Her heart clenches desperately in her chest as it swoops into view.

 

The First Order has found them.

 

_ Ren  _ has found them.

 

She doesn’t let herself react. Slamming down the thoughts before they can begin as she focuses herself on the adrenaline. She locks her mind against the sudden dizzy pulse of his power, concentrating her attention on the people she's inadvertently surrounded herself with instead. 

 

The lost stormtrooper, the cocky pilot, the loyal droid, and the broken father. Jagged pieces of their own puzzles. 

 

She’s made promises to them all. 

 

To save Finn from the First Order, to reunite Poe and BB-8 with the Resistance. To return a piece of Han’s memories. And they’ve paid her back with something she almost doesn’t have words for. A naive sort of loyalty, unspoken friendship… even Han, no matter how much she might loathe him for what he put his son through, has stayed true to his word.

 

They have somehow become almost…  _ important _ to her. Important enough that she can't stand to think of losing them to this battle at least. 

 

_ Her  _ battle.

 

“You have to get out of here.” She says, drawing her saber as the fighters stream overhead. The transporters already locking into landing position. “ _ Now. _ ”

 

She's deciding how to best cut off the troops that will be swarming the area in  _ seconds _ when a warm callused palm seizes hers. Cutting off the thought as her whole body jerks at the careless, comforting touch. 

 

“ _ We. _ ” Finn corrects her as she turns accusing eyes to him. His hand clenched tight around hers, his tone final as he pulls her after them towards the trees.

 

She doesn’t pull back, not right away, not when she might not be offered this sort of unselfish friendship again in her lifetime. Instead she let’s it warm her for just a second before she tugs her hand away. Hearing Poe muttering to himself on her other side, something about wishing he had his fighter between ragged breaths. BB-8 letting loose a string of binary curses as they rush over the uneven terrain. 

 

“Less talking.” Han yells, taking the lead as they race back towards the clearing they left the Falcon in. “More running.”

 

She can hear the fighting behind her, an endless loop of laser fire as the ground shakes with muted explosions. Half her attention fixed on flinging troopers off their trail every time they get too close. Crushing one almost without meaning too when a shot singes too close to Finn. Almost losing her balance when Poe suddenly shouts, mistaking the sound for one of pain until she glances over and sees him grinning from ear to ear.

 

“Here come the good guys.” He yells as he catches her eye, a wave of X-Wings appearing above them as if on cue. Flying so low they split the canopy in two with the downdraft, sending leaves spiraling around them like snow.

 

_ The Resistance. _

 

Something inside of her steadies, knowing now that her promises are almost filled. She will get the others to their ship, see them off the planet and consider her debts paid. And then… and then she doesn’t know.

 

She should follow them, she knows they’d let her. Despite her past, Finn and Poe would welcome her into their world.

 

But she  _ can’t. _

 

She doesn’t belong there, not really. She’s not  _ good  _ like Finn’s good, not easy going like Poe. Too sharp, too  _ unfinished,  _ she would be an outcast amongst outcasts.

 

And it hurts because it's not even as if she belongs with Ren now either, even if he would take her back. The thought of returning to an unchanged First Order makes her sick, the memory of Starkiller still crawling in the back of her mind as she turns to glance behind her. Feeling the distant echo of his power picking up, tightening in her chest as she searches the shadows for him. 

 

Had he  _ known? _ Had he played an active role in the death of a whole civilization? 

 

She shudders, falling behind the others as the feeling that’s worked it’s way inside her chest grows. A twisting vine of horror that sinks thorns into the softest parts of her. Unable, even now, to escape the overwhelming awareness of him.

 

He’s following her -  _ them _ . Haunting their footsteps. 

 

The world is raining down around her and suddenly, with an almost painful clarity, she realizes she’s caught in the middle of an impossible situation. That, even as she runs from him, she can’t shake the fear that somehow he might be hurt in this conflict. A stray laser blast, a mistimed ion bomb. 

 

That he might die here, alone, after all she’d done to save him.

 

That she might never get her answers. 

 

She can’t keep running.

 

-

 

_ She’s here.  _

 

Somewhere in the forest. 

 

He can feel it in the marrow of his bones, a vicious, beautiful certainty that takes hold of him as he breaks rank. Leaving the stormtroopers behind, pushing away from the chaos of the battlefield and into the trees after her. Following the whispered trail of her power through the undergrowth, feeling the pulse of her heart in his chest like his own as he gets closer. Practically tearing up the forest as he stalks her.

 

_ She’s so close. _

 

Something inside of him broke when he left her. A fresh wound in his already damaged soul, deeper and bloodier than any before and now... now he has a chance to be  _ whole  _ again. The selfish, fervent intensity of his need to claim her back has spiralled out of control inside of him, bursting like a supernova in his veins with every ragged step closer to her. Even the fear, the ever-present undercut of anxiety that has become his most familiar companion can’t touch it now. Not when she’s finally near.

 

He reaches for her with his thoughts, brushing against the desert-stone shields of her mind. Chest aching with the familiarity of the action as he cuts a swathe of destruction through the trees when they grow too thick. Slicing down anything that would separate him from her now, willing to burn down the whole forest to get back to her side.

 

He needs to _ see _ her.

 

If he can just see her everything can be alright again.

 

He knows it.

 

-

 

She can feel his power like a physical weight now, knowing that she stands on the precipice of something she can’t turn back from as they scramble through the tall grass.

 

The Falcon is waiting, a hulking grey shape at the far side of the clearing. The others are already racing ahead towards it, Chewbacca’s worried roar audible even over the screech of the battle going on above their heads. They’re all so ready to join the fight with the best weapon they have, to help the Resistance in any way they can as the sky is torn apart above them.

 

“Rey-” Finn pants, half-stumbling as he realizes she isn’t following them. That she’s locked her feet against the earth instead. “What are you doing? We gotta get out of here.”

 

“No.” Her voice is calmer than it has any right to be. She straightens her shoulders, chin lifting as she nods goodbye to them. Tucking the image of their faces away somewhere inside of her mind almost without meaning too. Someplace safe, _warm._ Someplace she can’t look at right now. “I’m not going with you. There’s something I still need to do here.”

 

“Like hell.” It’s Han who speaks this time, surprising her with the vehemence in his voice. “I don’t care what you think you- whatever happene-” He growls in frustration when he can’t find the words, stabbing a hand towards the waiting ramp. “Just get on the goddamn ship, sister.”

 

She shakes her head. Her power already surging, rising automatically as if to greet the man she can feel closing in on them with every passing heartbeat. Unstoppable, inevitable.

 

A collision she’ll face head on. 

 

“I said  _ go. _ ” They falter as she turns away, curses spilling from them as they bounce off the force shield she throws up. Keeping them back, unable to do anything but watch as she hurries away, back across the clearing.

 

She will keep them safe, these enemies of the First Order. 

 

Ren can’t have them. 

 

And then… when the dust settles, if they’re both still breathing, she’ll get her answers. 

  
  


-

 

He breaks out of the edge of the forest to find her  _ waiting. _

 

She’s…  _ there.  _

 

Right there in front of him. Even fiercer than he remembered. Standing ready in the tall grass in someone else’s shirt, her knuckles white around the hilt of her saber. Beautiful and  _ real. _

 

There’s warning in her eyes.

 

_ Uncertainty.  _

 

Something almost fragile…  _ broken  _ in them that makes him despise himself more deeply than he ever thought possible.  Her power has changed too somehow, it’s still sun-sharp and blinding as she raises it against him… but there’s a new edge to it. A creeping shadow of darkness he hasn’t felt before, it’s boundaries icy cold where they used to burn.

 

Fuelled with  _ fear. _

 

He has done this. Hurt her like this. And he has to  _ fix  _ it.

 

He takes a step towards her but she flinches, stopping him more effectively than any blow could. 

 

“Let them go, Ren.” Her voice is strong, clear, but her jaw is trembling. Teeth biting hard together as she raises her saber towards him, her feet falling into a familiar stance. One for fighting a larger opponent.

 

_ Him. _

 

“What-” His heart turns leaden, every muscle in his body locking as he tries to understand. Confusion tearing into him as he’s gripped in a sudden, paralyzing wave of panic as he realizes with a start what she means.

 

There are  _ others  _ behind her, frozen on the other side of the clearing behind a barrier of her making. One’s whose presence he had completely forgotten in his desperation to see her again. The strangers she has somehow deemed worthy of her protection, the ones she stands sentinel in front of with determination in the set of her shoulders.

 

He tenses, forcing himself to stand straighter. Letting himself take their measure. The traitor, the enemy pilot, and... and the old man who wears the crumpled remnants of his father's face. His stomach turns, darkness rising at the horrified press of their minds against his own, shutting them out before he can feel too much of them.

 

They represent everything he despises most.

 

The fool who had helped destroy the boy he had been. The poster child of the  _ ‘Resistance’ _ he has dedicated himself to fighting. And the  _ traitor _ . The one who  _ escaped  _ the Order’s grasp, who abandoned his cause, who gave into the light without a second thought.

 

The one who’s looking at Rey with such devotion it makes his jaw clench tight enough to pop. 

 

Anger courses up inside of him, almost welcome in its familiarity. A silent, seething rage that they are  _ daring _ to witness this. That they’ve somehow crawled their way inside Rey’s good graces when it took him  _ months  _ to earn her trust. 

 

They are  _ unworthy  _ of his attention. 

 

Unworthy of  _ her. _

 

He takes another step towards her, deliberately this time. Drawing himself up as he closes the space between them. There has been enough foolishness, if she means to protect them  _ fine.  _ He doesn’t care so long as she comes back with him, where she belongs. Let them rot here.

 

“I’m not here for  _ them.”  _ He offers no compromise, his voice made ragged through the modulator in his mask. 

 

Her stance falters ever so slightly, a tremor in her grip as she fights to keep her saber raised against him. Her surprise is instant, and behind it… a sudden, breathless jolt of elation she can’t hide even as she tries to. He feels her try to bury it, sees the caution rush into her gaze in it’s wake, but it’s too late.

 

He’s felt  _ it. _

 

She wanted him to come back for her. She wants him even now. He seizes on the feeling like a starving dog, desperate for more, for  _ her.  _ Taking another step towards her as she circles away from him. And another.

 

Eating up the space between them until her blade is the only thing that separates them. Feeling the heat of it against his heart as she holds it unsteadily between them. Watching the bright blue light dance in her eyes, lighting up every conflicting feeling he can see swelling in their depths.

 

The fear, the  _ relief, _ the hurt and hope. A thousand contradictions he needs to set right, an overwhelming  _ distrust  _ he needs to sweep away.

 

He kills his own blade at last, clipping the hilt at his waist and reaching for his mask. Seeing the pulse leap in her throat as her gaze darts to his hands, watching his every move like some feral creature as he pulls it loose.

 

No more barriers. No more lies.

 

“I’m here for  _ you. _ ”

 

_ And I’m not leaving without you. _

 

-

 

She tries not to step back as he approaches, that would be a sign of weakness. Not to flinch even as her pulse rushes in her ears, the familiar hum of plasma can do little to soothe her now. Not when he’s stalking towards her like a promise.

 

It feels like her chest has been filled with metal, with _magnets,_ pulling her towards the steel of his bones even as she fights to keep her muscles locked against him. He tears his mask off, letting the metal thunk to the ground and all the breath in her lungs deserts her at once. An uneven gasp as she loses herself momentarily in the planes of his face, a face she knows better than her own.

 

In the wild, fervent feeling of his eyes.

 

Trying to reconcile him with the cold creature who had stranded her on Jakku.

 

Who had hurt her in the deepest way possible, the way only he knew how.

 

“I’m here for  _ you. _ ”

 

She struggles to make sense of the words. Hardly able to fight it - the traitorous,  _ desperate  _ feeling they bring out in her. It makes her want to cry and curse. To cast her weapon aside and beat him with her fists until her hands are bloody with it. To kiss him. Like she used to. 

 

_ “Why?”  _ She hears herself ask, eyes widening at her own boldness even as her hands shake with the effort of keeping up her guard. With  _ anger.  _ At him, at herself. At the fact they’re forced to meet like this as enemies and yet he’s still tracing the curve of her lips with his eyes.

 

He hesitates, the question seeming to catch him off guard as his eyes still flicker back and forth across her face as if he could possess her with his gaze. His power almost suffocating now as it swirls and eddies around her, raising the short hairs on the back of her neck as it rubs against her. Beseeching and bullying in equal measures.

 

“You  _ know _ why.” His eyes lock with hers again and she remembers how it feels to drown in them. His ability to steal her breath with a single look, how  _ unfair  _ it is. The battle a distant noise now as she swallows hard as he takes another step towards her. He’s  _ frustrated _ , she realizes. She can feel it now, his emotions storming against her shields, demanding entrance. “You’re…”

 

He trails off, eyes narrowing as he searches for the word. Seemingly as lost as she is. The air has turned thick, swollen with static charge and with a start she realizes she can smell burning. That he’s pressed so close that her blade is slicing through the outer layer of his surcoat without either of their notice. 

 

She takes a half-step to the side and he follows. A silent dance she knows well. One they’ve done countless times before in training. Moving again when he seems determined to impale himself upon her blade.

 

“ _ What, Ren?”  _ She prompts after what feels like a lifetime of heavy silence, the frustration inside of becoming unbearable. Throat thick with anger at him for daring to do this,  _ now,  _ after everything. Will he try to call her apprentice again? Insist she finish her training with him after all that’s passed between them?

 

Her stomach turns sour at the thought. That he could be so… so  _ cold  _ about it. Business like. If he tries to play that card now she might just stab him for real. 

 

Any agreement they might have had was broken the second he left her in the sands. 

 

Any affection they might have shared… well, he had made it perfectly clear what he thought of her.

 

Something about his name seems to wake him, his eyes widening. Darkening with something she can’t let herself feel as he surges towards her, hand raising automatically towards her face. When he speaks it’s not as her mentor. Her  _ master.  _ The masked enforcer of the First Order. The words come from  _ him.  _ The man she’d thought she’d found a home in.

 

“You’re  _ everything.”  _

 

And it makes the hurt so much worse, her resolve weakening as he reaches for her. A knife-stab of longing straight between her ribs. She was wrong, gearing herself up to feel righteous indignation when now all she feels is…  _ want. _

 

She almost lets him touch her.

 

Almost lets herself  _ believe _ him. It would be so easy to now, to forget what’s happened, the things she’s seen and learnt. So easy to fall back into the way things used to be.

 

Then she feels Finn’s sharp pulse of worry, hears Poe arguing with him over the sound of her heart beating itself apart in her ears. She remembers herself. Jerking her weapon back into position, correcting her stance as she darts away from his touch as if he might burn her. 

 

How can he say that now?

 

“You… you  _ left  _ me.” 

 

The words are out before she can stop them.

 

Her heart drops to her stomach, teeth sinking hard into the flesh of her lip as she tries to swallow them back. It isn’t what she meant to say.

 

Maker, it wasn’t what she meant to say at all.

 

She had meant to curse him for everything  _ else. _ For what the First Order had done, for what they’re still doing to this once-peaceful planet. To rage at him for not telling her the truth about his family. About the whole bloody mess over who Luke Skywalker really was.

 

Who  _ Ren _ was.

 

And yet when she’d opened her mouth she hadn’t said any of it. She’d hurled out a pitiful, childish accusation at him instead. Opened up the selfish little pain at her centre that, if she were to be truly honest, hurt more than anything else. 

 

The pain she’d sworn to never let anyone see, not again. Not when it was so easily used against her.

 

And yet somehow now she can’t stop the words from falling.

 

“You… you promised you wouldn’t and then you… you just  _ left  _ me there.” Something hard forms in her throat as she says it, something that  _ can't  _ be a sob because she won't allow it. Swallowing hard as she looks up at him in accusation. “You wouldn’t even _ listen  _ to me.”

 

“ _ Rey- _ ” His voice breaks on her name and it’s too much. Every emotion she hasn’t let herself feel since he left crashing through her at once.

 

Everything before has been an  _ echo  _ of this pain. A shadow of it. He lied to her. About leaving her. About his family. About the First Order. She had knocked down every barrier she’d ever built for him, let him crawl inside her heart and set up home there and then…

 

Then he’d left her.

 

-

 

There’s a burning between his lungs and for a second he thinks he’s pressed to hard, that the lightsaber still wavering in front of his chest has found it’s target. Lanced through him and carved out his heart.

 

The truth is worse. 

 

If it had been her saber it would mean an end to this at least. That he wouldn’t have to live with the memory.  _ This  _ memory. The image of her sharp hazel eyes shining with tears, looking up at him with such raw  _ pain. _ Knowing that he alone is the cause of it. 

 

The world narrows down to the space between them, everything else forgotten as he’s swept away by the  _ feeling.  _ The flood of her emotions against him as her shields waver, unable to contain it all.

 

“I’m sorry.” 

 

The words are unforgivably quiet. 

 

Unforgivably  _ lacking.  _

 

But he says them anyway. Fighting the urge to knock her weapon aside and press through this last remaining foot of space between them. As if the strength of his will alone could push them back through time. 

 

“Did you give the order?” Her voice shakes, lifting a hand to dash angrily at her eyes. Her emotions swirling around in his head, drowning him in his own guilt. “ _ Starkiller, _ Ren. Did you… did you have any part in that?”

 

He falters again, another arrow into him as he struggles to think through her pain. Trying to drag the splintered fragments of his composure back to him. To regain some semblance of  _ control. _

 

“I didn’t know.” He draws in a ragged breath, hands still itching to reach for her. For contact. Even as he tries to keep his back straight under the weight of her anguish. “I wasn’t there.”

 

“And if you had been there?” She demands. “Would you have let it happen?” 

 

He finds himself trapped in the accusation of her gaze. Unable to look away as he considers it, the pause turning dangerous.

 

If the Supreme Leader had ordered it… would Ren have tried to stop him?  _ Could _ he have? Or would he have stood silently by and let it happen if his Master had deemed it necessary. He knew Starkiller had been built for a reason after all. Snoke had made it clear that the disbandment of the New Republic was the only way to reinstate the true order of the universe… and that if they didn’t bend, they would be broken. And he… he would have been complicit in it all. He would have watched the deaths of billions for the sake of an ordered cosmos, for universal good.

 

For Snoke’s vision.

 

When did it become  _ Snoke’s _ vision? Wasn’t it  _ his?  _ He can’t think. Uncertainty lying heavily in his chest as he watches her reaction. Knowing she can read his answer in the echoing silence. 

 

“I  _ felt  _ it, Ren.” She whispers, and shame courses through him at the horror in her eyes. The  _ disappointment.  _ She takes a step away from him, looking at him like he’s a stranger to her. “I felt them die.”

 

He can’t help but follow her, as if they were attached by a string. Unable to do anything but echo her steps, bitter exasperation bubbling up inside his chest. A wash of darkness, of  _ fear  _ as she moves from him. Suddenly terrified that this won’t be enough.

 

That  _ he  _ won’t be enough.

 

That she’ll try to walk away and he’ll do something truly desperate to keep her.

 

“Rey, you have to understand-” The fear turns to anger in his throat, there has to be  _ something _ he can say, something to fix this. To bridge the gap between them and make her  _ see.  _ To make her understand the horrors of war, the necessary evils his Order must undertake for the good of the universe. The things he’d do to keep her. “It’s the-”

 

“Don’t.” She shakes her head, her lightsaber suddenly dying in her hand, leaving him off balance again. He watches the shutters fall in front of her eyes, her emotions suddenly muted, shielded from him as a damning calm settles over her. She clips the hilt to her hip and reaches back to pull something else from her belt. “Here.”

 

She holds another lightsaber out. One that makes his heart stop dead in his chest as it’s dull surface shines in the dying light. 

 

_ His  _ lightsaber.

 

His grandfather’s.

 

The one that had been in Anakin Skywalker's hand when he had embraced the darkness. The one that been in Ren’s own when he had accepted it too. The one he had trained with, taken his first life with...

 

“Where did you get that?” He hears himself ask, hand shaking as he reaches for it. Hesitating above hers when he can’t quite bring himself to touch it. Suddenly convinced this is a dream. 

 

It has to be. 

 

She  _ can’t _ have found it. It was stolen so long ago, lost to time and the depths of the universe. How can it be that she’s only been away from him for days and yet here she stand with another lost piece of him?

 

“Does it matter?” She asks, looking up at him again with those solemn, closed-off eyes. Resigned. He wants to shake her, kiss her, provoke her joy, her anger.  _ Anything  _ other than this sudden numbing stillness. “ _ This _ is what you want, isn’t it? The past. To live your life in the shadow of a... of a dead man. Just take it, Ren. Take it and  _ go. _ ”

 

She waits. He can see the unsteady fall of her chest as she holds it out, waiting for him to take it and abandon her again. To seize this remnant of his Grandfather’s crusade and forsake her for good.

 

He doesn’t hesitate this time. 

 

He has learnt from his mistakes. Learnt from the emptiness that’s filled him since the moment he walked away from her.

 

He sends the proffered hilt flying from her grasp, knocking it into the tall grass and seizing her hand instead. Pulling her to him before she can protest as he swallows her up in his arms. Crushing her against his chest and burying his face in her hair. 

 

Claiming her the way he should have done from the second he laid eyes on her.

 


	38. Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bridges aren't the only things burnt when she faces them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Well hello there beautiful people! Thank you so much to all y'all still here reading and commenting - you are the best of folk and I hope you all have a most excellent day! <333 Here we have another reunion, one I think more than a few of you were predicting last chapter! Awwwwkard! ;-)
> 
> Rellcardo Hotsauce - my heart seeps with gratitude for you and your totes amaze beta skills! :P ))

  


 

 

She’s dimly aware of the hand covering hers, pulling her tight against his body as she hears the hilt bouncing off the hard ground beside them. A split-second of disorientation, of stunned disbelief as he casts his past, his _future_ , aside with a sweep of his hand.

 

Then he’s holding her so close that the rest of the universe ceases to exist.

 

He becomes the sky and ground, blocking out everything but the desperate grasp of his hands against her back. The warm press of his lips against her hair. Arms wrapped so tight she almost can’t breathe, so familiar it hurts as she feels the desperate rise and fall of this chest beneath her cheek. The storm of his emotions melting into hers.

 

And it’s so unfair because _he’s_ the one who left her and yet she can’t help but pull him even closer. Suddenly terrified he’ll disappear again. Clenching her fingers so hard against his ribs she knows she’ll leave bruises, breathing him in until he’s filled her lungs. Her head. _Everything._

 

The world slips away, her shields tumbling like stones as the lines between them blur. Everything else flickering out to nothing in the endless perfect moment before she has to remember herself. Before she has to push back, face up to all the questions this moment _can’t_ answer. The past, the future.

 

That will be then.

 

This is now. And, for this heartbeat at least, she can just _feel._ His remorse is overwhelming, his guilt sticking hard in her chest. Sealing around the clattering engine of her heart. He’s so afraid too. And…

 

_It’s still there._

 

The steady, terrifying pulse of emotion she’s been far too afraid to look for before. Sitting deep in his chest, it’s golden glow tarnished but _strong._

 

“Forgive me,” he breathes against her hair before drawing back just enough that he can look her in the eyes, pleading. “Come back to me, Rey. I... ”

 

He’s standing on the brink of the confession.

 

She can feel it. Poised to say the words that once said can never be taken back, about to call this thing between them for what it is. _Love._ Destructive, consuming, selfish love.

 

Her whole body tenses... _not now._

 

_Not yet._

 

“I can't go back to the First Order.” She cuts him off, the words spilling out in an ungainly jumble.

 

Freezing him in place.

 

-

 

He hears her through a fog, his mind rewriting the words even as she says them.

 

“I can't go back to the First Order.”

 

_I can't go back to you._

 

His grip tightens against her, heart sticking in his throat as the fear creeps back in. A twisting mess of confusion that overtakes everything else, overshadowing the relief he feels at having her close again. She has become his only anchor. Without her there is nothing but the void… the emptiness.

 

But for as long a time as he will let himself remember he has _been_ the First Order. The Leader of the Knights of Ren. His Master’s apprentice.

 

He has willingly given away his humanity to become a symbol of it all.

 

A mascot.

 

How can he exist without it?

 

Who is she expecting him to _be_?

 

The panic redoubles as the options present themselves, as the fear of what might come next overrides his sense, but then her fingers are tightening against his ribs. His vision clears, meeting her gaze as she stares straight through him. The way she’s always done. Seeing every shadowed place and not flinching away.

 

Her reassurance spirals within him, pressing like her warm hands into the few soft places he has left. Light and fierce and _hers._

 

His worry fades, remembering exactly who she is. The first person in as long as he can remember, in his whole life perhaps, who isn’t expecting him to be anyone else.

 

Not a name or a legend or a shadow of someone else.

 

She wants _him._ The ugly, unformed scraps that comprise him at the core of his being, nameless and unwanted. The shattered remnants of an unknown identity that gather dust in the back of his mind and the hollows of his chest.

 

His mind races ahead of him. Ready to offer her anything to make her stay, to _do_ anything to keep her, to bring her back with him. Then something moves in the corner of his vision and he can only _react._

 

Reality rushes in in a heartbeat as he feels it, _violence._ A low wash of fear, _anger._ He moves on instinct, pulling his saber as he places himself between her and the threat. A rumble of warning catching in his throat as red clouds his gaze. Ready to fight.

 

She moves in tandem, feeding instantly off his emotions as her own weapon springs to life in her hand. Planting herself firmly at his side, all grace and deadly fury as she squares up to the intruders.

 

Then she falters.

 

He hears the catch of her breath as her lightsaber wavers, dies, feels her confusion. The rush of shame she can’t hide. His anger builds, bubbling up inside of him as he realizes who it is he’s protecting her from.

 

Who has come to destroy this perfect moment.

 

-

 

She doesn’t think she’ll ever forget the way Finn’s looking at her.

 

The sight of him charging across the clearing, blaster drawn, her barrier broken in the rush of the moment only to stop. To falter where he still stands now, staring at her in… in horror. _Betrayal._ Like he can’t believe how easily she’s slid into place beside Ren, how well they move together as she readies her blade at his side.

 

She lowers her weapon, heart sinking with it as she clips it away. The moment stretching into infinity in the space of a second as his emotions cloud her mind. Then his chin jerks up, jaw firming and he’s pressing forward. _Determined._

 

“Get away from her.” He shouts, his bravery returned. His hatred for Ren burning in her head as he pushes past his fear to stand up for her.

 

Putting his own feelings aside for _her_ wellbeing as he aims his blaster at the man beside her. The shadow of his thoughts flicker across her mind, he thinks Ren has tricked her somehow. Has swayed her with his dark powers.

 

She would laugh if the situation wasn’t so dire.

 

If she wasn't suddenly so terrified he's going to fire and set into action a chain of events that can only end in horror.

 

She swallows her fear, taking a half step forward, towards him, only to find Ren placing an arm in her way. Stilling her progress, equal parts selfish and protective. Drawing his weapon higher, almost daring the ex-stormtrooper to fire.

 

“She is none of your concern, _traitor_.”

 

The animosity between them rises like the frustration she can feel swelling in her throat. She forces it down, pushing Ren’s arm away and planting herself between them. Seeing the others already running across the clearing to join the fray and knowing she needs to end this.

 

Defuse this ticking time bomb.

 

“ _She_ can speak for herself.” She stares Ren down, eyes narrowing as she sees the tension tightening his shoulders, his emotions pulsing in her chest like her own. She can feel him barely restraining the urge to snatch her back again, to strike out at this intruder. She sucks in a deep breath but doesn’t look away until she’s certain he’ll stay put.

 

Finn is waiting on her other side, breathing hard, blaster still waving in his hand. Her eyes soften as she turns to him, silently imploring him to understand. To stop, to leave this. Knowing she’s walking a knife’s edge between these broken people she’s surrounded herself and loathe to do anymore harm to them, _any_ of them.

 

“Finn.” She feels Ren flinch as she says the other man’s name but it doesn’t stop her. “Please, don't do this, just… Just go.”

 

No matter how much she cares for Ren, she can understand Finn’s hatred for him all too well. He doesn’t _know_ him, not like she does. He only knows the Mask. The symbol of the First Order, the enforcer of those who had kept him captive. The cold commanding horror story.

 

“You can’t be serious.” Finn’s eyes widen in disbelief. “You can't expect us to leave you _here?!”_

 

“What’s going on - are we fighting?” Poe appears at his shoulder, blaster raised. Han and Chewbacca not far behind. “Why is Rey standing…” His voice trails off, head tilting as he takes in the scene. His aim never wavering despite the lightness in his tone. She keeps her chin up, refusing to back down. “I’m gonna need someone to catch me up here.”

 

Her face burns beneath the judgement in his stare, heart pounding desperately as she forces her back straight. Ready to react, to _strike_ the second anyone moves to fire. Feeling the last threads of Ren’s composure fraying in her head as she desperately tries to keep it together.

 

Her gaze flickers between them, steadying herself over what might happen as she reads their faces. Finn’s disbelief, Poe’s suspicion, Chewbacca’s hesitance, his shock, and beside him… Han…

 

Han’s falling apart standing still, stalled in the tall grass. His face is slack with shock, with a feeling so intense she can barely comprehend it, never mind name it. The pain of it echoes between her ribs and she realizes with a start that this must be the first time in a long time he has seen his son’s face.

 

“Rey?” Poe’s voice snaps her out of the moment, letting her shut the feeling out. There’s no time to bleed over might-have-beens, not with the threat of violence still hanging so thickly in the air. Not when there’s two blasters still aimed squarely at Ren’s heart. “What are you doing?”

 

“I’m not going back with you.” She says, the words coming out harsher than she intended as she finds her voice at last. “And I’m not letting you - _any_ of you - start something I’ll have to finish. Just leave.”

 

“No way.” Finns shaking his head, an unsteady motion he can't seem to stop. His eyes pleading with her. “No way in hell Rey, how can you expect us to just leave you here with that… that _monster?”_

 

She takes a half step back, almost stumbling as the words strike her. Behind her she can feel Ren’s anger swell. There's something else behind it though, something so quiet and ugly she can barely feel it.

 

A pulse of self-loathing.

 

Of… Agreement.

 

Her heart stutters, her own anger rising, sweeping hotly through her as she glares at Finn. At Poe for nodding and at Han for just… just _standing_ there.

 

Judging her. Judging _them._

 

Ren’s torment becoming her own as she glares at the people in front of her.

 

“If he's a monster then I am too.” Her voice is icily calm, quiet, even as her muscles tremble with the weight of keeping in everything she's feeling. Ren's shock echoing in her head at the words.

 

Taking two steps back she plants herself firmly at Ren’s side, closing her hand around his wrist as his emotions rise up inside of her, feeling the tremors that shoot through the locked muscles just beneath her fingertips.

 

He’s a statue. Even the pride she can feel swelling beneath his shields, the affection, can’t keep out the rest. Can’t mask the black storm cloud of emotions that have been brewing inside of him since he first saw the old man who had once been his father across from them. The one he can’t seem to look away from.

 

He has no mask to protect himself with now.

 

She knows she should explain, Finn deserves that at least. But she can’t find the words. Not now, not after this. They’ve all lodged themselves in her throat, chaining down her tongue as she looks between her new-old friends. Something unfixable in Finn’s eyes, a special kind of hurt as he recognizes the darkness within her at last.

 

It hurts.

 

But not enough. Not enough to make her turn back. To make her release her grip on the man beside her.

 

“ _Rey-”_ Finn’s voice in broken in disbelief, the horror of it running so deep it creeps inside of her and makes her stomach clench. She tries to brush it off, the _disappointment_ in his gaze, even as she holds even tighter onto the man beside her.

 

“Just go.” It’s the only thing she can say, final and uncompromising. Tugging on Ren’s arm, certain it’s time for them to leave too. He doesn’t move, his gaze trapped again on the old man in the corner of the scene. She swallows hard, suddenly snagged by the intense feeling in Han’s eyes as he stares unblinking at the man his son had become.

 

He opens his mouth at last and says a single word.

 

Almost a whisper, a plea.

 

“ _Ben...”_

 

-

 

Ren can’t keep from flinching.

 

Some ancient, terrifying feeling seizing hold of him at the sound of the name.

 

The image it conjures of a dead and buried boy.

 

His hands clench, panic tightening his muscles as old hurts making themselves new inside Ren’s chest. Ugly abscesses inside his soul that seep _weakness._ Weakness because part of him still _remembers_ , no matter how hard he tries not too. Still feels a warmth he can’t stomach as another memory overlays itself over the top of the scene in front of him.

 

His father coming down the ramp of the lumbering grey ship, running towards him - no _Ben_... the child. Dashing through a clearing not so very different from this one, swooping him into his arms and spinning him around.

 

“Miss me, kid?” The ghost says, ruffling his son’s hair. “I got you something from the trip, you too Princess.”

 

He remembers the way Han would smile at the child’s mother when she joined them, another ghost now, how _warm_ he’d feel in that moment. How _safe._ How it could make him forget, even for a heartbeat, about the darkness already circling his subconscious. About the expectations already weighing heavily on his shoulders.

 

How in that fragile second the child felt like he was… _enough…_ just as he was.

 

It never lasted, though. Not for very long.

 

He’d be forced to remember that the universe expected _more_ of him. Because of who he was. Who is parents and uncle and the rest were. He would be expected to be better, smarter, _calmer._ And Han would leave again. He always left again.

 

Then Ben was sent away for good, never to return again.

 

Ren destroyed him. Destroyed it all. Reforged himself into something better, smarter, _stronger_ than they ever imagined _._ A nightmarish inversion of the hopes and dreams that had meant more to them than a child of flesh and blood.

 

It’s the man that stands before Han. The knight. Darkness rising up inside him like a tide, comforting and corrosive. He digs into it with both hands, pulling the _hate_ to him. The fury that only this… this washed up old _hero_ could inspire. Violence quickening in his veins as he readies himself for this moment.

 

The anchoring grip on his wrist tightens, Rey’s small fingers burning through his sleeve as she pulls him back from the brink of something so dark it scares even him. Letting him breathe just a fraction easier as he remembers himself.

 

None of them can feel her turmoil under the surface of her mind, not like he can, the guilt and frustration she’s holding in as she faces them by his side. How it turned to anger and fear in equal parts as she stood in front of him, _protected_ him from them. Bound herself to him before their eyes.

 

He feels a twinge of something almost like pride as she holds onto him _, gratitude_ that she’s standing stalwart beside him instead of rushing to them. That she hasn’t forsaken him for this sickly paradigm of _goodness._ No matter what the old man has said or the traitors and murderers have whispered to her, her choice is clear.

 

She has chosen _him._

 

Even after everything he's done. All the ways he's hurt her.

 

She has chosen him anyway. 

 

And he will _always_ choose her in return. He can’t give into the siren song of the darkness, not now, not with her standing so close. It would be too much to risk losing her again so soon. He must remain steady, for her.

 

He lets the knowledge settle him, seizing onto it as he forces himself into impassivity. Meeting familiar dark eyes in an unfamiliarly _old_ face with calm. His shields locked tight against this particular enemies emotions.

 

He doesn’t know what might be waiting for him if he reached out with his thoughts now, if he looked inside Han Solo’s mind.

 

Remorse perhaps, guilt at the way he’d treated his son...

 

Hatred for what Ren has become, what he has been made.

 

The thought is lost as the old man looks away at last, his eyes moving, locking onto Rey instead. Ren’s lungs seize as Han raises a greying eyebrow, the expression so familiar he feels sick as the boy’s father looks at the woman at Ren’s side.

 

“ _‘Apprentice’,_ huh kid?” Han scoffs, but his words are quieter than Ren remembers, shaking at the edge. It’s Rey’s turn to tense, eyes flying wide as her hand freezes against him. He moves without thinking, tugging his arm up and slipping his fingers through hers before she can pull away. Holding her firmly in place.

 

“Rey has already asked you to leave.” He feels the tremor that shoots through her at the words, her fingers crushed tightly against his own. “She won’t need to ask again.”

 

Han Solo bristles at the rebuttal, jaw working as he goes to say something more. To curse or beseech or belittle, Ren doesn’t know.

 

He doesn’t care.

 

Before anything else can be said, any shot fired, his comm crackles to life. Rey’s hand tightening reflexively in his as it suddenly blares to life at his waist.

 

_“Sir, The Resistance fighters- We need more troops--”_

 

-

 

Rey sees her chance and takes it. If the others won’t leave then they must.

 

_Now._

 

Before there can be any more bloodshed or heartache.

 

She gives Ren a wordless look, Letting any last shred of her shields slip away, silently agreeing to go back with him, now, if it’ll end this. Letting him feel her tiredness. The aching sadness in her bones that _begs_ him to come away with her.

 

No more pretending.

 

He hesitates for the longest second of her life and then nods. Decision made.

 

Releasing her hand he pulls the comm-link free and jabs the button. His eyes never leaving hers as he gives the order. “Prepare to pull the division. I have what I need.”

 

She bites down on her lip at the words, heart leaping so violently she thinks it might bruise. When he offers her his hand again she takes it without hesitation.

 

“Rey - you can’t _leave_ with him--” Finn raises his hand towards her as she turns away but she shakes her head. “Please, just listen to me--”

 

“There’s nothing else to say.” She says, softly this time. Barely more than a murmur as a new hollowness opens up inside her chest that it has to end like this, with bitter disappointment. That her memories of this time, these few days of fledgling friendship, will forever be tainted now. “Be well.”

 

Ren’s hand is warm in hers, the familiar buttery softness of his gloves against her palm as she pulls him away from the others. She pauses just long enough to retrieve his mask from the tall grass, the other saber too. They've landed besides each other on the ground, if she were the type of person to believe in signs perhaps she would see one here. But she doesn't. She's too tired for omens. Handing the mask to him she tucks the hilt away in her belt and walks away. Taking her first step towards the place she’d sworn never to return to not ten minutes before.

 

She knows the darkness that fuels the First Order now, more intimately than she ever thought possible, but she’s all too aware of the gray-shaded world she’s living in too. That this… temporary evil… is her only choice. That it was the only way this scene could end.

 

She will return, for now, and trust that when the time comes… Ren will listen to her.

 

That he’ll see it too, the path they could take, somewhere between the lightness and dark the universe seems determined to divide them into.

 

That he could… he might… choose her.

 

Snapping the flagging remnants of her power up again in another shield as Finn tries to follow, Chewbacca’s quiet whine of disappointment sinking right down to her soul.

 

“May the Force be with you.” The words ring in her ears, quiet and rough. _Han._

 

She swallows hard, tugging on Ren’s hand she pulls him away. Retracing the destruction he’s cut through the trees back to the chaos of the castle.

 

Not looking back.

 

Not once.

  
  
  


 


	39. Threshold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ghost of Ben Solo and the legend of Kylo Ren are fighting for his soul and the only person losing is him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((*sidles in* Hiiii guyyys! Sorry this is super late again ^^; It's extra long to make up for it though! I promise <333  
> As always I have to give you my biggest and most ridiculously grateful thanks for sticking with me on this crazy journey, I truly hope you enjoy the rest of the ride! The next chapter shoooould be fun ;-) <333
> 
> Captain Rellaway, this lizard baby is for you! Thanks so much for your betabations annnnd happy birthday for Monday you glorious time witch!))

  
  
  


He pauses at the edge of the trees, the shadowed space at the border where the hush of the forest meets the chaos of reality.

 

Stormtroopers race across the clearing, the air crackling with barked orders and the hard click of armoured feet on stone. A harsh contrast to the muted sounds of before, the battle was a distant whisper then. Now it’s all too real.

 

In a way Ren is grateful, it’s drowning out the echoes of… of _that man’s_ parting shot.

 

_May the force be with you - may the force - may the - may -_

 

He shudders, focusing on the screech of the fighters, even as part of him wants to retreat from it. To stay forever in the boundary between their worlds. No First Order, no Resistance. Just them, together in the green.

 

Some place purely… theirs.

 

But the real world won’t wait.

 

The transporters are already prepping for departure, the battle rapidly spiralling towards them. They can’t win, not now, the enemy’s X-wings flying low over head as the Resistance presses their advantage.

 

It isn't safe to linger here.

 

He untangles his fingers from hers, already aching at the loss of touch. A weariness he didn't know he was holding back suddenly seeping into his bones in her wake. The empty, ebbing anger at what has just transpired. Of the things he’s been forced to remember and the ghosts he’s had to confront.

 

There's panic lodged in his chest still.

 

He feels it now, a tightness that will only loosen with distance. That will only fade when he steps back into the role the universe has assigned to him.

 

The one he has _chosen_ for himself.

 

Even if it's fitting less and less easily with each passing day. Too tight, almost… suffocating.

 

He raises the mask, wondering for the first time in a long time if the day will ever come where he won’t need it anymore. If he’ll ever put it down and forget to pick it up again.

 

It almost feels impossible.

 

It's been a part of him for so long. His protection from the world, from _himself._ A physical manifestation of his power, his legacy.

 

A source of strength that let him do the things he didn’t think he could do.

 

At least it was.

 

But now, with her, it’s become an… an inconvenience. With Rey there should be no barriers. He doesn't need a shield, or a reminder of his purpose. A shadow of his legacy or a weapon of intimidation.

 

His true face is enough for her.

 

It’s not soft and weak as he sees it, a fun-house mirror image of other people’s features. She’s never seen anyone else in his eyes, or in the turn of his mouth… at least, she never used to.

 

_Now though?_

 

He swallows hard. Steadying himself against the past, focusing on the future instead as she raises her hood. He presses his hand to the small of her back, drawing in a deep breath through the masks ventilation system.

 

Once they leave this place everything will change.

 

-

 

It takes everything within her to keep her shoulders straight as they step out into the battle-scarred landscape, already so different to the one she arrived in. It’s only the solid figure of Ren at her side, the heat of his hand against her spine, that keeps her from bolting back into the trees.

 

All eyes turn to them. A sharp wave of attention as the heads of every trooper and officer stationed at the landing point snap around to watch them. She sees the micro-tilt of their heads, the automatic jerk of surprise, before their training kicks in. They fall back, white-masked faces dropping in unison in a sign of respect.

 

Her breath catches, wondering exactly how the two of them must appear to these people. The Master of the Knights of Ren and… and _her_.

 

How many of the troopers does she know? How many of them has she shared meals with?

 

How far has she come that they now bow their heads before her?

 

If they recognize her as a lowly technician they make no show of it, there’s only curiosity there. _Fear._ If she’s important enough to walk beside Lord Ren… well, they dare not show her anything other than respect.

 

It awakens a low spark of feeling in her, sends it skittering across her nerves. Something that might almost be excitement, only it’s coated in so much guilt and fear she can’t quite tell. She doesn’t look at it, unable to accept that it might be elation she feels at being recognized as important when it should be disgust.

 

They stride up the ramp of the Command Shuttle, her heart beating just a little bit faster as she steps into the belly of a ship she never thought to see again. The memories of the last time they were here seem to echo in the suddenly unfamiliar corridor, painful but… muted. Like they happened to someone else.

 

Ren leads them the wrong way, to the aft of the ship instead of the cockpit in the front. She tries not to appear surprised. It makes sense after all. There’s no way the feared Lord Ren would ever be expected to fly his own ship on a mission like this. Not with so many subordinates around to take care of it for him. For… them.

 

She should be disappointed, if it had just been them, the two of them alone, she might have been able to convince him once and for all to come away from this. Fantasies swirling in her head of them breaking to hyperspeed and losing the surrounding ships, leaving the First Order far behind them.

 

But she’s tired. So very tired.  And she knows her dreams are unrealistic, nothing is ever that simple.

 

At least not for them.

 

Wrapping her hands around her waist she leaves Ren in the hallway, listening with half an ear as he snaps orders at the liaison officer as she steps into the artificial hush of his quarters. They are not to be disturbed. The reports are to remain _unaltered._

 

She stops listening.

 

The stateroom is almost exactly as she has imagined it. A monochromatic world of harsh angles, soft black leather and cold durasteel walls. Soft-lit by the viewport and the obligatory red glow of the First Order approved comms system.

 

She feels… dazed. A strange sort of turmoil taking hold of her that she can’t quite grasp, numbed and distant. Suddenly realizing that everything has changed and there is no easy way out for them.

 

No matter how much she hates what the First Order has done, it’s still his life. Still his _home._

 

Her heart sinks, old fears making lead weights of her bones as her gaze drifts to the viewport. Trying to shut out the heavy circle of her thoughts as the shuttle rises, the tree-tops becoming stars by the time Ren joins her. She meets his gaze in the glass as he enters the room, locking the door tightly behind him.

 

“I meant what I said you know.” She says quietly, gaze fixed on his reflection as he removes his mask again. Breathing a little bit easier when she can see his eyes. “I’m not staying with the First Order. Not like it is, not when something like Starkiller can exist.”

 

A shudder runs through her at the thought. Of the destruction it had been capable of, the lives lost. Of what they’d done to Finn, and she imagines to so many other stormtroopers like him. Twisting their thoughts, indoctrinating them into becoming bodies for their cause. Replaceable. _Disposable._

 

And yet here she is rushing back towards them at full speed, and worse than that is the knowledge that there’ll be no escaping their notice now. No secret meetings or stolen moments. She can no longer have both lives, she must face the consequences of her actions at last.

 

She can see his throat working as he nods, taking in her words as he crosses slowly to her side. She has to fight the urge to lean back into him as he stands behind her, his hand ghosting lightly over her shoulder. There are new boundaries between them, ones she’s not quite ready to lower yet.

 

Things she can’t unsee.

 

He hesitates, fingers just brushing the edge of her tunic. Something raw in his eyes, painful to look at, even through the distance the reflection provides.

 

“We could… change things.” He offers, the last words she’s been expecting. There’s a strange dark longing in his voice, almost intoxicatingly hopeful as his hand brushes her skin at last. The touch sparking through her veins. “We could fix it, _together._ ”

 

Her heart catches and unbidden, the idea unfurls. The First Order’s methods are evil, she has no doubt of it now, but the _people._ The ones she knows, the ones she _likes,_ they aren’t evil. They’re following orders. And if the orders were different… If they were given the _choice..._

 

She let’s herself imagine, just for a second, the _good_ the First Order might do. If they stopped trying to control the universe and actually dedicated themselves to _helping_ it. With their power… their infrastructure… they could bring untold peace to the places the Republic had forsaken.

 

Like Jakku.

 

No one would have to starve again.

 

The hope flutters, painful and bright, before it sputters out in a wave of cold realism. It seems… impossible. There has been too much darkness, surely, for any good to come of this.

 

And there is darkness still. _True_ darkness. Sitting high above the First Order, pulling their strings even now.

 

“Ren…” She suddenly can’t stand the hope. Can’t stand to see the _burning_ in his eyes as the future dances before them. Tantalizing and utterly hopeless. “I know that you believe in the First Order,” _In Snoke,_ she wants to say but doesn’t. “But I can’t. Not now. Do you honestly think it’s possible to change things after this? There’s been so much… death. Would it even be _right_ to try _?_ ”

 

-

 

It’s a question he's been dreading, one he has no answer too.

 

For so long he's been certain in the knowledge that his path was true, that the horrors he has performed were necessary for the greater good.

 

They proved he was strong, strong enough to work death and destruction in the pursuit of order. To be the necessary evil that change dictated. He bloodied his hands so that he could control the chaos of the universe, make it better. Make it _right_.

 

No more doubt, no more _pain._

 

It seems now though that it no longer seems to matter where he stands, at the top of the galaxy or the bottom of the food chain, so long as she is there - what difference does it make?

 

Together they could do so much, but she’s _right_ too, in a way at least.

 

The First Orders methodology is _flawed,_ he can see it now. Their pursuit requires darkness yes, and sacrifice, but there are holes in the Order’s logic and it terrifies him right down to the marrow of his bones. Suddenly realizing that his every decision is up for debate.

 

And if he’s been wrong… if the things he’s done have served no greater good... he can’t even _think_ about it. There is madness there, a darkness so true he can’t see the end of it.

 

He swallows tightly.

 

“I don’t know.” He admits the words out loud, an audible confirmation of his fears as his fingers drift down to hers. Needing the comfort of her touch, the surety that she’s real. _There._ He steps closer still, hands skimming hers before he wraps his arms around her. Unable to keep from pulling her back against him at last. Feeling the way she tenses for a split second before she relaxes against him, practically melting in his arms. “But we could try. If it was us, if we…”

 

The words die. The image he has painted himself of them of the great things they could do together, side by side with the might of the First Order and the Knights of Ren behind them, flickers and fades.

 

He has forgotten someone.

 

_Snoke._

 

Guilt lances through him, an automatic reaction to his imagined betrayal.

 

His sin of omission.

 

The dark little voice in his head finds it’s tongue again.

 

Ren is nothing in comparison to _him_.

 

His thoughts of right and wrong are a child’s babbling to Snoke. His master has watched civilizations rise and fall, has cultivated the Order with the utmost care. He has raised Ren from _nothing_ to where he stands today.

 

The words are fainter than ever, a hollow echo of a past certainty, but he can’t help but think them anyway. They have been a part of him so long he can’t help but listen, to tell himself that any joy he might find with Rey must surely only be possible through his Master’s wisdom, his benevolence.

 

If there are flaws in the First Order they have been made through human error. When his Master knows of it, things will change.

 

They have to.

 

“I will go to the Supreme Leader when we return,” he says after a moments pause, the distance between them widening again as he sees the disappointment in her eyes in the viewport glass. Feels it's sudden echo in his chest as she draws away. “Snoke is wise above all things, he wishes only for a balanced universe. He will listen.”

 

-

 

_Snoke._

 

Her stomach turns, the bitter taste of fear coating her tongue. There is nothing wise in the demon she has seen in her visions, in her _nightmares,_ only darkness. An eldritch horror beyond her waking imagination. She pulls away, twisting in his arms until she’s facing him at last.

 

She needs to look him in the eyes.

 

No reflections, no hiding.

 

She needs to be able to _see_ him when she asks the the question that will decide everything.

 

“And if he doesn’t listen?” All of the hurts of the last few days reawaken themselves in her chest, ribs suddenly heavy with it as her breath catches. “If he doesn't agree?”

 

His answer, more than any heart-felt confession or sweeping gesture, will be the decider of their fate. She realizes now that time will heal her other pains, that he left her, that he lied, all of it will pass eventually. But _this,_ this is the true measure of their future.

 

Together or apart.

 

She can see his immediate knee-jerk reaction, can practically hear the words forming on his lips.

 

‘ _He’ll listen.’ ‘There is no need for concern.’ ‘Snoke is wise.’_

 

Her heart thundering so loudly it almost drowns out his words when he finally answers her, so slowly she can barely stand it.

 

“Then…” He says, his eyes so black they reflect the stars. “Then we’ll leave. Together.”

 

Her heart stops completely, a violent wrench that leaves her momentarily unable to breathe. Unable to believe her own ears as he looks down at her with such lost, solemn _promise_ it feels like she’s drowning.

 

In the best way.

 

Her heart starts again and she realizes she nodding, an unsteady jerking movement as her hand reaches up without her command to brush the hair from his face. The hope _burns_ her, sparking up in her chest like a fire.

 

It’s still a _bad_ idea, going back at all, she feels it down to her bones. Snoke isn’t the type to just _let_ them go if they decide to. But Ren won’t go without trying, and she owes it to him to let him. To face whatever will come afterwards with her back straight.

 

Beside him.

 

No matter how much the prospect of it terrifies her.

 

After all this time, Ren deserves answers of his own.

 

And… the fact he’s said it at all… That he’s even _considering_ leaving his entire world for her… It’s more than she dared hope.

 

It’s _everything._

 

The ship shudders as they hit hyperspeed and she finds herself stumbling off-balance into the edge of the view port, the sudden motion reawakening the wound across her upper arm and making her hiss between her teeth.

 

“You’re hurt.” His concern is immediate, a sharp flare of panic that has him at her side before she can finish cursing. The heavy weight of the conversation slipping away from her at the sudden sting of pain. This hurt is a simple thing compared to the rest. Far easier to deal with.

 

“It’s not a big deal.” She shrugs, immediately regretting the action as it irritates the wound. He looks wordlessly at her for permission and she nods, letting him lead her to the chair by the data panel. He crouches in front of her as she sits, carefully drawing down the fabric of her arm wraps. “Just a minor tussle with a Guavian Death Gang.”

 

His fingers still, eyes snapping to her face so suddenly it makes her laugh. His expressive features settling somewhere between disbelief and irritation. A familiar expression.

 

One she’s missed.

 

“I’ve been busy.” She almost shrugs again before thinking better of it, keeping her arm still in his hands instead.

 

“I see.” He murmurs darkly, even as his touch softens against her. Their warmth of his fingers already soothing the ache away.

 

She tries not to flinch as he reaches to peel the gauze away at last, the blood sticking fabric to skin in an entirely unpleasant way. He whispers an apology, sliding the ruined bandage off and revealing the ugly line of the blaster shot to the light. Moving away just long enough to retrieve a med-kit from beneath the bed.

 

He reaches for the bacta, a luxury unavailable to her when she’d patched herself up in the Falcon, leaving her to suddenly consider the other things still left unsaid between them. Twisting her fingers together unconsciously as he reaches up to clean the area. Remembering how many times they’d done this for each other before, after particularly intense training sessions or… other activities.

 

Her heart stutters, knowing it can never be like that again with so many words still hanging between them. If they’re going to face the future united there are more things that need to be said.

 

More bandages that need ripping off.

 

“You lied to me.” She says to her interlaced fingers, trying to keep her tone light and failing. He stills, cloth damp against her skin.

 

“What do you mean?” His words are suddenly guarded. She can see the tension clawing in the line of his shoulder as his eyes turn wary.

 

“Your parents… your father?” She can’t look at him, not now. It’s enough that she can _feel_ his reaction. The horror that clouds his mind at the words. “I know they’re alive, Ren. You lied to me. About that and… about Skywalker. About who you ar- _were._ ” She sucks in a deep breath, letting it burn in her chest for one moment as the images of everything she's seen dance behind her eyes. The boy, the blood line. The whole convoluted _mess._ “I know about Ben Solo.”

 

He flinches violently at the name, fingers clenching against her shoulder and making her wince. He draws back instantly, fresh guilt fluttering behind his shields as he turns away from her.

 

“I didn’t lie.” He says, carefully packing up the supplies as she draws her wraps back up. “That boy is dead, I buried him. If he’s who you want…”

 

The words are half hearted, an echo of an old hurt. One she knows he no longer means, the bitterness in them his and his alone as he faces down the future as it could have been.

 

She wonders how he imagines it, if he sees himself as a brave general like his mother or a daring smuggler like his father. A Jedi. Someone kind, caring… Sweetness and light.

 

However he imagines it he's wrong.

 

If Ben Solo had survived it would not have been as some beacon of goodliness. No more kind or open, whole or easy than the man who sits before her.

 

There'd be less blood on his hands perhaps, the schism inside of him far smaller without the hand of his master, but still… She knows life would have only broken him in different ways. He would never have been a reflection of his parents, his sense of self is too strong.

 

Even if he can’t see it yet.

 

Not that it matters, the past is done with and, at the end of the day, she doesn't love the boy.

 

“You know I don't.” She says simply. He does, she knows it, feeling the guilt that rises again in him at her firm words. He knows very well who she's loyal too, and it's not the dead son of a cursed bloodline. “I just… I wish you'd told me yourself. All of it.”

 

He nods. Dropping to sit opposite her on the black leather flat that serves as the room's bed, still unable to quite meet her eye even as their knees brush in the cramped compartment.

 

“I should have done.” He says, “I should have told you, even if I'm not that person anymore, you deserved to know the whole ugly mess of it.”

 

“You know you're not just the ‘ _Feared Lord Ren’_ either.” These words are harder, but just as important. She reaches between them, pressing a hand to his cheek, forcing him to look at her at last. “You are not true darkness, Ren, no matter how much you might want to be.”

 

His eyes are wary, hurt and… And lost. _So_ _lost_. It's a look she knows all too well, one that burns into her as he meets her gaze. The hunted confusion of someone lost in their own life, drowning in it no matter how hard they try to swim.

 

It’s how she used to look before she gave up on her parents. Before she met him.

 

He covers her hand with his own, the move startling her from her reverie as he drags it to his mouth. Kissing her palm.

 

“I don’t know what I am anymore.” He admits, his voice a ragged murmur against her skin.

 

“You’re you.” She says, the truest words she's ever spoken. “You’re _enough._ ”

 

-

 

He can’t help himself, hand shaking as it holds hers.

 

Too close, too tight.

 

As if by holding onto her like this he might stop her from ever slipping away from him again.

 

There’s so much he needs to tell her, a thousand, thousand things.

 

All the things he isn’t strong enough to tell himself.

 

That how, despite how hard he tells himself it’s not,  his confidence in his Master is shaken. Slipping from him by the day. How _wrong_  it makes him feel, like a betrayer. A _coward._

 

How the bedrock of his world, the very gravity at his feet, is falling away from him and she's the only thing holding him in place.

 

The chasm in his mind, forged from all the terrible deeds he’s done in the name of righteousness, of _anger,_  is splitting and stretching until he’s terrified that one day he’ll fall right down into it and never surface.

 

That he’ll drown in his hate. His fear.

 

The ghost of Ben Solo and the legend of Kylo Ren are fighting for his soul and the only person losing is _him._

 

He hears his own voice in his ears, alien to him now.

 

“I’m sorry, Rey.” He whispers, over and over again. Eschewing all the gods of the galaxy and praying only to _her_. Praying she’ll understand.  “I never should have left you, I-”

 

She pulls her hand loose from him and his heart sinks for the split second it takes for her to move. Not to pull away, but to slip her fingers into his hair instead, tugging him to her as she presses a kiss to him.

 

There’s nothing harsh in this, no desperate hands or raging tempers. Just a kiss. Gentle, swelling with every soft feeling he’s ever felt. He finds himself gasping against her lips, a ragged, broken sound that echoes in his chest as she pulls away.

 

“I know.” She whispers and he falls apart.

 

Sinking to his knees before her, a willing supplicant. So unworthy of her in this moment he can barely stand it.

 

“I love you.” He says, eyes fixed on the durasteel floor. Shame coursing through him that such a low, bloody creature as he could ever dare speak such words to her.

 

That this weakness has broken him completely. Demolished him right down to his foundations.

 

His fall is complete.

  


 

 


	40. The Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are things she's never said. Not to him. Not to... Not to anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Omg I actually made it on schedule this week! What the heckity?!?! Stranger things have happened I'm sure :P  
> As always I'd like to throw out a big ol' Thank You for still reading and commenting you beautiful ocean flowers! Also... *ahem* I promised it in tumblr, I said I'd go five-for-five, so... without further ado... beware ye who enter here... there is smuttening afoot :P
> 
> Rellando CalRellsian - I am so so glad you didn't see my face whilst this was being beta'd. To quote a song, take me to church bby! :P))

  
  
  


The words seem to reverberate in the still room, even as he whispers them to the floor.

 

_ I love you. _

 

They echo in her ears long after his lips close, her heart beating in time to their memory. An uneven staccato in her chest as it sinks in. 

 

_ I love you. _

 

And Ren is still just kneeling there, staring so hard at the durasteel she’s almost worried it’ll melt beneath his gaze. He’s turned to marble in front of her eyes, only the ragged rise and fall of his shoulders proving he’s anything but a statue. Unearthly still on his knees before her.  _ Silent. _

 

But inside of him… there’s so  _ much.  _ A stark contrast to the form in front of her. His feelings coiling and twisting inside his chest, spilling out into her in waves. It’s almost enough to makes her dizzy, a storm unlike anything she’s ever felt. The black of his mind lit up with the fire-streaks of light. Horror and anger and shame and joy and  _ need.  _

 

At it’s heart is the familiar brush of  _ gold.  _

 

The gleaming thread of feeling wrapped around the deepest part of his chest. The place where his darkness meets the light, where it melds together, becoming something  _ other  _ than either. Something poised exactly between the two.

 

Stronger than anything she’s ever felt and yet as fragile as glass.

 

A feeling that’s…  _ hers. _

 

_ I love you. _

 

She almost can't believe it, even with the evidence right before her eyes. A familiar chorus of disbelief rising inside her head, denials that this could happen, even now. Even with the proof of it within reach.

 

There’s a part of her, a nasty, corrosive quiet little place, that doubts  _ anyone _ could love her.

 

It's a trick. A lie. Everyone leaves. Everyone hurts her. She can only trust herself.

 

But the words are faint now, an old mantra in a tongue she’s no longer fluent in. They pale in comparison to the truth she can feel inside of him. He may not understand love any better than she does but…

 

He feels it.

 

She  _ feels  _ it.

 

And that’s enough for her.

 

Her ribs constrict, iron bands around a heart that's thumping fit to burst. She needs to see him now, needs to read his eyes before she replies.

 

“Look at me, Ren.” Her voice only trembles a little, firming with each word. “Please.”

 

He complies, lifting his head slowly. A broken animal at her feet. He’s so afraid. So  _ hopeful _ .

 

“I’m sorry.” He says again and the tears pricking hotly at the back of her eyes threaten to spill. His black eyes shining with regret, with so much more than she has words for, when they meet hers.

 

“Me too.” She says, in place of the other words. The ones that are burning in her throat, begging to be said and yet refusing to leave her tongue.

 

The ones she can never, in the whole of her living memory, remember saying to another human being. Ones she’s only spoken to memories, to herself in the voices of others _.  _ A desperate plea to nothingness. 

 

Love has always been regret for her, something selfish. A catalyst to pain.

 

But this doesn't hurt anymore. It had but… she can’t regret any of it now. Not a single moment. All the horror and heartache that their live’s have wrought has brought them here, now. 

 

She looks at him and the words free themselves at last.

 

“I love you too, you know.”

 

The storm of his emotions becomes a supernova at her clumsy confession, exploding against her shields as his head snaps up fully. Staring at her in disbelief as she reaches slowly for him, brushing shaking fingers across his cheeks. Desperate for this connection now, for him to understand what this means to her.

 

What he means to her.

 

Her breath stalls at the uncertainty in him, the denial that pulses hotly against her mind as he watches her. Terrified for one long moment he won’t believe her,  _ can’t  _ believe her. Not after all he’s been through already.

 

He’s so easy to read now, his face completely open to her as his feelings play out across them like a holovid. She sees her own self-doubt echoing in his eyes, the lingering disbelief that he could be worthy of such an emotion in the parting of his lips. Slowly, like he’s afraid she’ll bolt, he reaches for her. Threading his fingers carefully through her hair, like she’s made of glass, the motion undoing the messy coils she’s tried to restrain it in.

 

Then he’s kissing her.

 

Not the gentle benediction she offered before, but with a bright burning  _ need.  _ Kissing her with a longing so deep it threatens to overwhelm her. Awakening something dormant in her soul as she drowns in the warmth of him, letting him kiss her, over and over. Letting him taste the truth of it for himself.

 

“I love you.” She whispers the words again, promising herself she’ll repeat them every day until every shred of their self-doubt is gone. Raising him from his knees until he’s sitting across from her again, leaning across the narrow space to tell him again. “I love you, Ren.”

 

She feels the final walls between them break, a physical crack in her chest as the rest spills out. The need she’s kept locked up inside, the fear he’s caged up in the back of his mind. Warmth and terror and desperation. He chokes out a low noise as she kisses the words against his skin, a pathetic little sound of longing as his hands tighten against her waist. Drawing her closer until she’s crawled into his lap completely.

 

Curling herself around him, fingers trembling as she unwraps his cowl from his shoulders, casting it aside.

 

She needs him now more than ever.

 

-

 

“Rey-” His mouth moves, working over words he can’t seem to say.

 

Needing to vocalise how unworthy he is.

 

He is a creature of weakness, insufferable selfishness and hateful darkness. He poisons everything he touches, his hands only fit for death and yet he would do anything to be worthy of touching her. 

 

Being  _ near  _ her.

 

He wants to tell her how much he'll  _ try. _ How hard he’ll work at being even  _ half  _ the person she deserves. How he's still terrified it won't be enough, that she’ll suddenly realize what kind of monster she’s bound herself too. 

 

_ If he’s a monster, I am too. _

 

Her words ring inside of him like she’d spoken them aloud again. Seeing the determination in her face, the fire banked inside of her.

 

Perhaps… perhaps it’ll be enough.

 

_ You’re you. You’re enough. _

 

Her voice is alive in his ears, even as she kisses him over and over, her hands trembling as they work at the fastening at his neck.

 

_ I love you. I love you, Ren. _

 

He almost speaks again, although the words have left him entirely but then she’s pulling back. Not far, just enough that she can look at him, read the feeling in his eyes the way only she can.

 

She shakes her head, mouth turning in an almost shy smile. Something so fierce in her, so protective it makes him weak as she laces her hands against his heart. He understands her silence completely.

They've said everything that needs saying.

 

Pushing his surcoat aside she turns her attention to the tunic beneath. Unlatching the first hook, then the next, a slow sort of desperation unfurling between them as her small hands work at his clothing. Unable to do anything but grip onto her, breathing unevenly beneath her as she works.

 

Stunned temporarily into stillness that she could still want him. Love him.  _ Him.  _ After everything.

 

But she does. Maker, fuck. She  _ does. _

 

The feeling stretches in him, deliciously agonizing and undeniable as his body becomes his own once more. Letting his fingers creep along the hemline of her tunic. A penitents touch as she undoes him completely.

 

She lifts her arms willingly, letting him draw the stolen shirt over her head. Her wraps soon following it, his gloves, his belt. The pile growing between quiet kisses as they relearn each other. Never moving too far out of orbit, as if scared that separating too much might cause this perfect moment to break. 

 

Her touch becomes a brand, scarring him with each gentle scrape of her skin against his as she works at the lacing at his waist. His hands clenching against her spine as the sensation of her warm hand between his thighs unravels his control, her hips bumping against his as he lifts them just long enough to shuck the last offending article away.

 

Any coherent thoughts he might have left to him are driven from his mind in a hail of ragged gasps as she touches him, her soft lips sighing against his jawline as she strokes at his hardness. Destroying the last fraction of his composure with her touch. Burning away everything with the slow fire she’s igniting across his every nerve. Spreading and spiralling until no inch of him remains unaffected by her touch.

 

He jerks back when the pleasure coils too fast, too hard, a guttural whimper tearing from his throat as he pulls her hands away. Her fingers interlacing with his as she lets him fold them down into the narrow bunk instead, trapping her willing body beneath his as he pulls desperate kisses from her mouth.

 

Her trust scorching him deeper even than her touch had as he dedicates himself to a wordless sort of worship.

 

-

 

The leather is cold against her back, a delicious contrast to the unbearable warmth of him above her. Unable to keep her fingers still as he tattoos kisses against her jaw, her throat. Scraping her nails against the corded muscles of his back, over each scar and ridge.  _ Hers. _

 

She gasps as he grazes full lips past the line of her collarbone, sinking down to place languorous kisses against every inch of unclothed flesh beneath. His tongue sweeps her flesh,  _ just  _ the way he knows she loves it, a red-hot burn that turns her molton. Liquid heat pooling low in her belly as she tangles her fingers into his hair.

 

He draws the sensitive peak of her breast between ungodly full lips, teeth gently grazing over her and her thoughts splinter. Replaced only by the fire, the golden spark inside of her brighter than ever as she tugs at his scalp, making him groan against her flesh. The sound reverberating through her ribs as she cages him between her thighs, trapping him above her as her hips buck desperately for more.

 

For  _ him. _

 

There’s no power play this time. No taunts or teases as they struggle for control. She doesn’t need to break him with her touch, to pull back the power she lost when he left her in the desert. He doesn’t need to control her with his kisses, prove himself her master again after she destroyed his only chance at finding the map.

 

There’s no battle… only  _ understanding. _

 

When she gasps out a plea for more he complies willingly. Sinking himself into her heat. Her back arches, heart stuttering as she loses herself to the familiar sensation. Clenching to her core at the languorous burn of his body inside of hers, the unbearable stretch as he moves in her.

 

His hand slides down between their bodies, between her thighs, delving into her sex. Her heart thumping in an irregular beat as he bands his fingers across her slick nub. Driving her into ecstasy as they find their rhythm, a slow steady beat set to the sound of their ragged breathing.

 

She can’t look away, refusing to close her eyes against the pleasure no matter how much her body begs her to just lie back and  _ feel _ . 

 

She remembers the first time they did this, the first time he touched her like this. 

 

How she thought his eyes could stop her breathing.

 

Now… now it’s just the reverse. Looking at him, feeling the gentle brush of his hair against her throat, the pulse of his body, hot and insistent and fitting exactly with hers…

 

It’s like she’s breathing for the very first time. 

 

The pleasure tightens, coiling inside of her as she gasps in air. Unbearable and exquisite in it’s slowness. Growing tighter with each steady thrust. Each swirl of his fingers against her, the pulse of his power as it merges with hers. 

 

She swears she can see stars painted across the backdrop of his eyes. 

 

He groans her name, a noise of pure devotion and she can’t stop it. Every muscle trembling as she bucks her hips up into him, calling out for him as the feeling overloads her. The electric charge of pleasure sending static into her veins, clenching tightly within her as it sends the world spinning.

 

For a second everything is still, the feeling stretching tight between them. 

 

Then he’s gasping her name again and it spills out of control. She cants her head back, hearing him through the unsteady rush of her heart in her ears. Drowning in the way his voice catches in his throat. The erratic snap of his hips as he follows her over the edge. Burying himself inside of her with a final shuddering jerk.

 

She lets out a breathy laugh as he slumps down beside her, a new sort of contentment settling in her chest as he wraps an arm around her. Sweat cooling on her skin in the air-conditioned hush, a stark difference to the warmth of him next to her. 

 

A pure, perfect moment of understanding passing between them through the invisible string that ties them. The one that's gone from spider silk to durasteel. An unbreakable cord fastened tightly beneath her ribs, linking her heart to heart, mind to mind, with him.

 

It would have terrified her once. To be bound like this to another soul. Her every heartbeat intertwined with theirs, destinies merged completely. She has spent so long in self-imposed isolation, even after she left the desert. Even after she found him. But now...

 

Now she can't imagine it any other way.

 

He is her strength, and her weakness. The only person alive capable of truly hurting her, and yet the one she’s going to trust not too. To risk it all on, to put every last damaged scrap of her faith in. 

 

And if he hurts her again, if life throws more pain at them, more heartbreak and betrayal, it’ll be worth it.

 

_All_ of it.

 

For this moment if nothing else. 

  
  



	41. The Arrivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returns and leaves are taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Guess who has two thumbs and is updating on schedule! This gal right here! :P Sorry it's not a more interesting chapter ^^; hopefully things will be more lively soon, thank you for reading anyway <3
> 
> And as always - thanks for betaing Rell :-) ))

  


It’s been so long since he’s felt truly content he almost doesn’t recognize the feeling.

 

The unbearable lightness in his chest, the warmth blossoming from every place their skin meets. A heady, shameful drug that has him slipping in and out of sleep for far longer than he’d usually allow. Letting himself, however temporarily, disconnect from the horrors of the past and the uncertainties of the future.

 

Letting him just… be.

 

When he wakes fully it’s to the even sound of her breathing. Her body still trapped in the possessive circle of his arms, face pressed close to his heart as she sleeps. She’s dragged his surcoat over them sometime in the passing hours, the rough fabric protecting the most of them from the chill of the room. Her legs tucked up tight beneath it, trying to stretch it as far as possible.

 

She always was susceptible to the cold.

 

He forces his eyes to the chronos above the data panel, heart sinking as he acknowledges the real world at last. The journey back to the base might be long, but it isn’t endless. Sooner or later they’ll have to face what’s awaiting them.

 

Five more minutes, he promises himself. Just five more.

 

Just long enough to fully memorize this feeling. The weight of her against his side, the curl of her fingers against his ribs.

 

_She loves him._

 

Maker only knows how. _Why._ She could give her heart to anyone in the galaxy after all. Worthy of far more than the blackened lump he has offered in return.

 

But, for some unknown reason, she has chosen _him._

 

He should try to fight it, what little he has in the way of a conscience knows it. It’s all well and good that he should dedicate himself to her but she… she can do so much better. She could know _true_ happiness, a whole life’s worth of peace and contentment.

 

If he had the strength to send her away she might find someone worthy of her.

 

But he won’t.

 

Not now. Not ever again.

 

He is not a selfless man, now she’s claimed him he will not easily give her up. He won’t make the same mistakes he’s made before.

 

He’ll hold on to her with both hands and hope the darkness doesn’t suffocate them both.

 

“I missed you, you know.” She mumbles against his skin, startling him from his reverie as she stirs. “And your ridiculous silent brooding.”

 

He almost smiles, even as something within him tightens. Swooping painfully in his stomach at the reminder of what he’s put her through. At what he will still probably wind up putting her through.

 

She really does deserve better.

 

“You’ll never have to miss me again.” He promises, the words low against the chestnut of her hair as his arms tighten automatically around her. “I’ll never let you go now.”

 

“Good.” She pinches him lightly, tilting her head up to glare sleepily at him. “If you even try it I’ll drag you back myself. Knock some sense into you.”

 

His breath catches, almost a laugh at her casual ferocity. The possessive fire in her heavy-lidded eyes. Before he can reply, tell her how it just might be worth it to see her come after him like that, how fearsome she’d be, she’s pulling away. Sighing so deeply he can feel it in his own lungs as she untangles herself from his arms.

 

“I suppose we better get dressed.” She hitches a shoulder, all gold and peach and glowing in the dim light. A familiar network of scars and freckles dancing across her back as she runs a hand distractedly through her hair. “We’re hardly up to uniform regulation right now”

 

She turns back to look at him, one eyebrow hooked with an ebbing attempt at humour. He tries to smile back but the lead has begun to settle back into his bones. Feeling as if someone’s turned the gravity up as he swings his legs over the side of the bunk beside her.

 

He sits there, still and silent for a long minute. Letting the weight of whatever’s going to come next roll over him. The terror is still there, all the fear and anger and self-loathing that comes with questioning his Master. But now it’s… distant.

 

A strange sort of calm softening its edges. One that feels completely other and yet completely… _right._

 

It feels like _her._ Echoing the soft brush of her cheek against his shoulder as she leans into him. A wordless offer of support he has done nothing to deserve.

 

He loops his arm around her, pulling her closer.

 

Five more minutes.

 

-

 

There’s not quite enough room on the Omega-class shuttle for a full wash room, not like the high-pressured ‘fresher back in their quarters. But the sanisteamer is at least seven hundred times better than the jury-rigged water pressure from the last ship Rey was on, so she doesn’t complain.

 

She stands in the steam for far longer than truly necessary, washing away every trace of her unexpected adventure. Wishing it could be quite so easy to wipe away the anxiety that’s set up shop in the pit of her stomach with it. The nagging fear she can’t quite suppress no matter how hard she tries.

 

By the time she finally steps back into the main room their destination has appeared on the edge of the horizon. The sight hitting her like a jolt to the stomach, her every nerve suddenly alive with nervous energy.

 

It isn’t the Finalizer waiting for them this time, no familiar steel-grey arrow cut out across the sky. This is the _other_ place. The source of so many recent horrors.

 

_Starkiller._

 

Even the name is enough to make her skin crawl, an icy chill creeping down her spine as they spiral towards it.

 

A collision course with destiny.

 

If she hadn’t known… hadn’t seen what it was capable of, she might have found it beautiful. It’s the first snow planet she’s ever seen with her own eyes. The first _snow_ she’s ever seen. The planet surface mottled white and grey with it. The closer they get the more she can make out, stunned by the great swathes of winter trees surrounding the base’s main complex. The frozen lakes and fields.

 

But the planet isn’t _natural._

 

Not with a great ugly gash splitting it right in two, so unthinkably wide that the blue glow of the atmosphere seems to be the only thing keeping it in one piece. At it’s centre a round, red reactor miles across.

 

The pupil of a grotesque eye.

 

She freezes at the edge of the viewport, knuckles clenched white at the sight of it. A full thirty seconds pass before her breathing evens, before she can move again. Finger combing the worst of the snarls from her hair as she turns away, braiding the whole mess of it back as she pushes the image from her mind.

 

The red light she can still see streaking across the sky if she shuts her eyes too tight.

 

“We won’t be here long.” Ren says quietly, handing her cowl to her. Helping settle it across her shoulders with gloved fingers. A small act of comfort she seizes whole heartedly.

 

She leans into the touch, reaching up to brush his hair from his face. Feeling the unshakable need to memorize his face. Which is ridiculous because she already knows him by heart, certain she could trace the map of his freckles blindfolded.

 

But this… this may be the last moment they have together before the fall out.

 

She has to savour it.

 

“Good.” She says quietly, reaching up to straighten the line of his collar. Letting her fingers dance along the smooth fabric of his neck guard, having to bite back a smile when he swallows hard at the touch.

 

She leans up, pressing an almost chaste kiss to him. A silent reaffirmation of everything they’ve already said, _felt._

 

There’s a whole universe out there, one she’s barely scraped the surface of. One she wants to share with him.

 

But first...

 

There are things to be settled.

 

-

 

The General is waiting in the cavernous hangar, the icy chill of the planet seeping down into the command base.

 

Ren tells himself the cold is the reason why his hands are shaking as they step out onto the ramp, why it takes an extra moment to force himself into the calm figure of fear he has so often been. Letting the mask work it’s magic on the subordinates that are waiting for them.

 

“ _Ren_ \- How dare-” The sharp words stop short, a momentary look of surprise passing over the General’s face as Ren emerges from the shuttle with Rey at his side. Lightening fast but unmistakable as shock richotes behind the other man’s eyes. “Forgive me. I didn’t know we were expecting _visitors.”_

 

There’s just enough of a sneer in his voice to make Ren’s teeth clench. The audible equivalent of the condescending little smirk on Hux’s face, his milky blue eyes flickering over Rey. The shadow of innuendo in them making Ren’s hands clench.

 

The anger is instantaneous, a whiplash of rage that splits through his chest at the sight. Warming him right through as he fights the urge to wrap his powers around the General’s neck and squeeze until his eyes pop.

 

To make sure he never looks at Rey that way again.

 

In the strangest way it _helps._ The anger clearing out some of the uncertainty.

 

Maybe he should be thanking the General for this sudden influx of rage, it reminds Ren who he is. What he’s capable of.

 

What _they_ are capable of.

 

They are not creatures to be so easily cowed.

 

“I was not aware that my every move had to be scheduled through you.” He replies, voice measured beneath the thin veneer of affability. “Perhaps you overestimate your significance in such matters.” Hux flinches and it feels like a victory. Turning his attention from the man entirely Ren fixes his gaze on his apprentice. His _equal._ Making the importance of her position clear as he addresses her. “Have you been introduced to the General?”

 

“We’ve met.” She flicks an eyebrow up beneath her raised cowl, face shadowed by it. He can feel the distaste swirling beneath her shields, read it in the slight crinkle in her nose as she meets the other man’s eyes. Her tone curt and indifferent. “General.”

 

“Ma’am.” His eyes have turned uneasy, Ren can feel him scrabbling for the memory. To recall the circumstances under which he’d met such a powerful individual and coming up short. But then the calm returns, something almost… dangerous lighting the General’s eyes as he focuses his attention back on the present. Back on Ren.

“Please excuse the _inconvenience_ , but we are to report to Supreme Leader as soon as possible,” Hux continues, his back snapping a little straighter, the edge of a simper in his tones. A cordiality that does not meet his eyes as he flicks his gaze between them. “Shall I have someone escort your… _guest…_?”

 

Ren feels his stomach sink at the mention of the Supreme Leader, the old guilt resurfacing. The nebulous feeling of betrayal he can’t quite seem to shake. Rey tenses beside him, back tightening beneath his hand.

 

They cannot back down now.

 

He must see Rey settled and then face his master. Get his answers and pray that Snoke will be forgiving. That he will understand what it is Ren must say.

 

And if he doesn’t…

 

Ren shakes the thought, snapping his attention back to the General, dismissing him with a wave of his hand. “That will be unnecessary. I shall see to it myself and join you directly.”

 

The danger in Hux’s eyes grows, a cold sort of… _gloating._ Subtle but _vicious_ as they walk past him. It locks itself under Ren’s ribs, feeding the fear already settled there as he escorts Rey away from the hangar.

 

His heart picking up pace even as he fights to keep his steps even.

 

-

 

General Hux doesn’t recognize her.

 

She’s not exactly surprised, she doubted she made any impression during any of the few times she was forced into close proximity with him. Just another oil-stained technician, barely worth the energy it took for him to sneer at her.

 

There was something almost viscerally satisfying in meeting his gaze now though. Seeing the shock on his face as she descended from the shuttle at Ren’s side. The faintest whisper of _fear_ she could feel behind his shields before the superiority took over.

 

But then his eyes narrow and he reminds them of their true purpose here. _Snoke._ Rey has to fight to keep her face blank under the thought of it.

 

The impossible situation they find themselves in. How they must try to to convince such a monster, someone whose hands are dripping with the blood of _billions_ , that the way the First Order is run is wrong. The way he treats the universe he claims to want to rule is unforgivable _._ Unjustifiable.

 

No matter how hard she tries all she can feel is _hate_ for him. This self-styled Supreme Leader. No matter how long Ren has spent at his side. No matter how much he claims to trust him.

 

Fear coats her tongue, bitter and unforgiving as she forces herself to calm the sudden racing of her heart. To face this problem as she would any other.

 

To assess, plan. Break it down into it’s blueprints and find the problem.

 

Only this isn’t a damaged flight sensor or a cracked hyperdrive.

 

This is _everything._

 

And fixing it will take more than oil and elbow grease.

 

She has to try. She focuses her mind, mapping out the most logical exit route if it does all go wrong when something catches her eye. Her gaze fixing automatically on the familiar logo of the shuttle at the far edge of the hangar. A group of workers in standard issue navy jumpsuits working to unload it.

 

She almost walks right past it.

 

_Them._

 

_Her crew._

 

The group draws back as they approach, heads bowing automatically in an unbearably familiar gesture. She can’t breathe. Locked on a course that takes the right past the ghosts of her old life.

 

She hadn’t ever thought…

 

The contract is still in effect, sure, but still, they shouldn’t be _here_. They should be safe, back on the Finalizer. She half stumbles over her own feet as she tries to process it, their presence here, _now._

 

Are they on a supply mission?

 

Have they been called in the wake of the weapons firing to help take up the slack?

 

Her heart is thundering like an engine, unable to drag her eyes away as she suddenly sees herself in another life. Standing quietly in their midst, head bowed, shoulders straight. Not asking questions. Not letting herself consider what manner of evil she was working on.

 

Safe and ignorant and completely unfulfilled.

 

Ren’s hand tightens against her back, concern cottoning itself around her mind as she pulls in a ragged breath. Holding it in as they draw level with the crew, trying to organize her thoughts. Processing the fact that, in whatever twisted way, she’s happier now in the midst of a danger unlike any she’s ever known than she ever was them.

 

It still hurts though. Seeing them like this, knowing they can’t understand. That they’ve probably already mourned her passing and moved on with their lives.

 

She can only pray that, like the General, they won’t recognize. They won’t draw attention to what she has become.

 

What she has, at her heart, always been.

 

But the Galactech crew are not as unobservant as Hux. They worked with her, _lived_ with her. They know her better than any official.

 

Zalya spots her first, peeking up through sooty lashes. The shock of it lances through Rey’s shields like a knife, her once-friend’s eyes going wide as she nudges the others.

 

Yalza’s mouth drops open. Vana’s lips tighten into a thin line. The colour drains from Lim’s face. And Jay… Jay can only stare.

 

Their disbelief is overwhelming, a mixed bag of horror and concern as she forces her head up against it. The strength of it beating against her mind like a fist.

 

Yalza takes a micro-step forward, mouth opening to say something, _Rey,_ but then her sister’s elbow hits her ribs and she’s silent. A long moment passing between them in a single heartbeat.

 

Rey nods once. An almost invisible jerk of her head that she tries to fill with more words than she can find. _I’m fine. I’m where I belong. Get out of this place while you can. Be well._

 

_Good bye._

 

Then Ren’s leading her away, leaving only the bitter swirl of guilt in her stomach.

 

There are far more pressing horrors awaiting them after all.

  



	42. Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The future hangs in the balance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Thanks so much for your patience guys! The wrist is slowly on the mend so hopefully I'll have the next chapter up a bit speedier than this one! And thank you as always *so much* for reading and commenting, I cannot tell you how much it means to me! <333
> 
> Rellarina Stratford - your betaing skills are almost as delightful as your face! :P))

 

 

“The map?”

 

Snoke’s words echo off the slick stone walls, an ominous greeting as Ren enters the chamber. 

 

Hux is already there.  _ Waiting.  _ Ren doesn’t look at him, doesn’t allow him the power of recognition as he approaches his Master’s throne. His robes snatching around his ankles like invisible hands trying to drag him back to the door.

 

Away from this place. To safety. To  _ sense. _

 

Back to  _ her. _

 

He steels his spine against it, refusing to back down. To be controlled by his own weakness, his fears. Not with Snoke towering above him expectantly, and Hux’s eyes burning holes into him as he draws level. Watching, waiting for him to fail. For any opportunity to tear him to shreds in front of their Leader. 

 

He firms his jaw, sweeping a bow before his Master. His words kept deliberately low as he answers.

 

“Destroyed, Master.”

 

There’s a heavy pause and Ren can taste metal on his tongue. The tension thick enough to choke on as he tries to line up the things he has to say. To put order to the confession he must make before his Master’s throne once Hux has been dismissed. The panic fresh and thumping in his chest despite his carefully impassive facade.

 

Snoke sighs, ageless and weary. Almost gentle as he waves his hand at the reply.

 

“Well, there is that I suppose.” The gentleness doesn’t last, a sharp edge creeping into his voice as he adds. “And the Resistance pilot?”

 

_ This _ should be the moment.

 

The beginning of the story, the chance to explain what has happened and why. Everything that has lead up to this moment.

 

Ren swallows. Fists tightening as he wishes the man beside him gone, the General has no place in this. Not now he is prepared at last to finally take the leap and tell Snoke about his apprentice. His… partner.

 

“They escaped,” Hux’s nasal whine silences him before he can speak, almost obscenely eager to cut him down, “our troops were defeated on Takodana. Ren didn’t think it  _ important  _ to finish the fight.”

 

Ren’s stomach sinks, coldness rushing through him in the wake of the  _ arrogance  _ of the man at his side. Hux would rip him bloody if he thought it would earn him an extra commendation. Another pat on the head from their Master.

 

_ Such a good dog. _

 

Ren fights to keep his eyes forward as an icy sort of fury spreads through his chest. Tightening his lungs and momentarily stripping him of his focus. He grinds his teeth, fighting to keep his own council. To keep his anger in check by his own will alone as his mind reaches automatically for  _ her.  _ The true source of his strength, glowing gold on the other side of the cord that binds them.

 

So close and yet so unbearably far.

 

_ His  _ doing.

 

She had fought tooth or nail to be here. Swearing over and over that she should be at his side when the truth was revealed at last. Fighting back her own fear, the black pulse of terror that had lived within her since she first heard of Snoke, so he wouldn’t have to do this alone.

 

_ Whatever happens next... we face it together. You promised me. _

 

Her protests echo in his mind, feeling again the sturdy weight of her fists as she drove them into his chest. Hearing the way she cursed at him in a dozen languages, spitting mad as he insisted she stay behind. 

 

_It’s just for now,_ He had said, capturing her hands. Trapping her against him as he tried to impress his will upon her. Make her see the sense in it. _Just for this first meeting._ _It’s the safest course of action, for_ both _of us. Trust me, Rey._

 

She had fallen silent at that, still so fierce. So hesitant to let him go. But her fire had waned, replacing itself with fear. With such solemn resignation he’d almost crumbled. Almost given up on this whole endeavour, taken her hand and run.

 

_ I do.  _ She’d whispered eventually, pulling away from him.  _ Just… don’t keep me waiting too long. _

 

_ I won’t.  _ He promises again, a silent oath as the memory fades. The force of it strengthening him, letting him centre his thoughts as Hux continues on, so sickly determined to prove his worth.

 

“But we do have their location.” The General puffs himself up, hands clasped behind his back as he stares brazenly up at their leader. “My forces tracked their reconnaissance ship to the Ileenium system.”

 

Another one of those tremulous pauses, Ren can  _ feel  _ the danger in it. Balanced on a knife’s edge as Snoke leans down towards them. Preparing to give the order to launch a scouting party no doubt, followed by a full troop for the attack. A thought that fills him with more conflict than he could ever have admitted before.

 

Rey would undoubtedly be upset if they killed her new…  _ acquaintances. _

 

Still. It is a necessary step to further the First Order’s cause. She will understand, even if she doesn’t approve. And besides, the Resistance is  _ competent _ enough, perhaps this attack will be enough to make them see sense.

 

Make them give up their foolish crusade.

 

“Good.” His Master draws the word out, gravel and grit as he nods his scarred head. “Then we will crush them, once… and for all. Prepare the weapon, General.”

 

Ren freezes. Rooted to the stone as his blood turns to ice in his veins. 

 

Struck silent by the  _ wrongness  _ of it.

 

He had not thought… not  _ Starkiller.  _ Not  _ again.  _ So soon after the massacre of the Hosnian system.

 

If they fire the weapon again… if they crush another star system…

 

“ _ No, _ ” he hears himself shout through the sound of his pulse thundering in his ears. Entirely disconnected from himself as the panic slices through him. Taking every shred of reason with it as he opposes his Master. “There must be another way.”

 

Hux whips to face him, rearing back in horror that Ren has dared speak in such a way. A horror that echoes in Ren’s own head, even lost as it is beneath the eddying waves of  _ terror.  _

 

He can’t focus on the General, fixing his attention in front of him instead. Back cracking straight as he looks up and up into the eyes of the Supreme Leader.

 

The man he had trusted his life to. 

 

His  _ soul  _ to.

 

As he tells him he’s  _ wrong. _

 

“We can’t fire the weapon again, it’s too-”

 

“ _ Silence.”  _ Snoke’s voice splits him in two, roaring down from his dais before his head swings towards Hux. “General, you have your orders.” His voice drops, turning dangerously quiet as he focuses the full weight of his attention on him. Freezing Ren out entirely. “And as to the matter we discussed  _ earlier _ , see it’s taken care of.  _ Immediately.” _

 

Ren can feel his ribs straining beneath the frantic beat of his heart, the harsh sound of his breath almost drowning out the clack of Hux’s boots as he takes his leave. The door booming shut behind him. 

 

A death knell.

 

He turns his eyes up to his Master again, forcing his fear into  _ fight _ . Strength. Teeth biting tight together as he centers himself before continuing, even as every instinct he’s learnt in the last decade tells him to fall onto his knees before Snoke and beg forgiveness.

 

He won’t, no matter how much the conflict tears him up inside. He must stand tall still.

 

For Rey. 

 

For _ himself. _

 

“With every respect, Master. If we go down this path… it will only end in our destruction.” Sweat beads along his brow despite the plummeting temperature. Shaking all over as he speaks, feeling the strength of the truth of it in the marrow of his bones. “Fear has it’s place, but this will only set the universe against us. We cannot hope to rule without the promise of hope.  _ Mercy. _ ”

 

The words hang in the air. Unwavering, even coated as they are in his own terror. He leaves them there, standing silent at the Supreme Leader’s feet, offering his prayers to the universe one last time. That this,  _ the truth,  _ will be enough.

 

That his Master will  _ see. _

 

Snoke’s face, inhuman and ageless,  _ softens.  _ Brows drawing up as he tilts his head backwards, rising slowing back into his seat. Ren falters, a tentative vine of hope creeping up inside of him, blossoming slowly in his chest as the moment drags on and he remains standing. Not struck down for his insubordination.

 

When Snoke speaks it’s with the heavy weight of a millennia.

 

“I had hoped, apprentice, that my words… my training would give you wisdom to overcome this yourself...” Snoke sighs, a sound ripe with wistful disappointment. “And yet time and time again you have  _ failed _ me. Defied my orders. Kept your distractions…” Snoke focuses the full weight of his attention down at him, black eyes  _ burning _ . “ _ She has made you weak. _ ”

 

Ren’s hope dies.

 

-

 

Rey paces.

 

There’s a restlessness in her bones, an anxiety that throbs through every inch of her being. Itching underneath her skin as she paces and paces and paces some more.

 

Cursing herself a thousand times as she works her way around the circumference of the room. So much like their quarters on the Finalizer she might almost be able to convince herself she was back there.

 

That they were safe.

 

Only they’re not.

 

And besides, nowhere is safe any more. No planet, no moon, no ship. Everything has become a target with the firing of Starkiller. 

 

And Ren is  _ there,  _ in the heart of the base, throwing them on the mercy of it’s creator, and she’s  _ here. _ Just…  _ pacing.  _

 

She has to be able to  _ do  _ something. She swore to herself she would never wait again, never sit back when it came to her own life. Even if she can’t be beside Ren now physically, surely she can find  _ some _ sort of purpose. Do something to stop another travesty.

 

Surely she owes it to the universe to try.

 

She throws herself down in front of the datapanel, mind made up as she swipes it into life. Holding her breath tightly as she inputs her old technician code from memory. Praying it’s not too late, that bureaucracy and the fledgling thread of hope might have kept the crew from removing her from the system already. Especially considering how, up until a half hour ago, her colleges probably thought her dead and buried.

 

Her heart falters as she presses send, leaping up into her throat as the screen flickers uncertainly.

 

The light strobes green.

 

Her login has been accepted.

 

She relaxes for a split second, the first wave of tension leaving her in a sharp exhale before the second wave begins to crest.

 

That was the easy part.

 

Now she actually has to  _ do  _ something.

 

Pulling her legs up underneath her in her chair she turns her attention to the Starkiller system, running the security scan frequency in the corner of the screen as she pulls up the internal blueprints. Relying on her old skills, honed with rust and blood in the desert, to work her way deeper into the system. 

 

No force pushes or mind tricks.

 

Just her, alone, forging clearance codes and access passes when she hits her own security limit. Digging and digging until she finds what she’s looking for.

 

The weapons main frame.

 

The primary controls are wired to the bridge, she can’t touch them without physical access to the panel they’re linked to. But the maintenance tools… they aren’t subject to the same restrictions.

 

Who would be interested in them, after all? 

 

The plasma conduit tunnels and the vent system. It’s all lowly  _ technician stuff. _

 

The domain of the invisible.

 

Of  _ her. _

 

She feels herself grinning, a burst of adrenaline rushing through her as she brings up the codes that’ll take her through the final few firewalls keeping her from the system. If she can get in, force a hard reset, it’ll put the weapon down long enough to…

 

The thought stutters as the security scanner flashes red. The live status on the weapon changing, the level rising as the system engages. As it begins to draw in energy.

 

She can’t breathe.

 

They’re trying to fire it again. 

 

_ Already.  _

 

To destroy more lives, more  _ worlds. _

 

No. 

 

_ No. _

 

She won’t allow it. Not whilst she’s still breathing.

 

Fighting to keep her seat she focuses her attention back to the screen, the adrenaline washing away the sudden pulse of  _ terror  _ that fills her. Does Ren know? Should she warn him? He made her promise not to reach for their connection until he returned but… no. She stops herself, if he was in trouble he would let her know.

 

He had made promises too after all.

 

And right now her attention is best focused forward. She might not be able to force a full reset with the initializer running but she can sure as hell try to slow them down.

 

-

 

_ Snoke knows.  _

 

Somehow, he already _ knows.  _

 

About Rey, about  _ them. _

 

And he doesn’t understand at all.

 

The horror at the rest, Starkiller, the destruction of more worlds, more memories, fades beneath this new, crippling darkness. It’s all he can do to keep himself standing. Keep his gaze fixed upwards as he swallows hard. Hands clenching as he looks up into the black eyes of his fate, his Master’s voice ringing in his ears as he looks down at him with an almost  _ fatherly _ disappointment.

 

“You have been my greatest accomplishment, Ren.” He says, reaching a spectral hand towards him. “You have a potential unlike any before you,  _ power  _ unlike any before you. Tell me, do you truly not have the strength to do what is  _ necessary  _ now? To eliminate this threat to the Order, to your very  _ destiny? _ Will you not prove yourself worthy to my throne?”

 

The words are bitter, stinging shots. Each hitting him full force in the gut, it would be enough to drive him back if he could move at all. His body betraying him, frozen and hollow as he stands, judged, at his Master’s feet. Unable to do anything but listen as Snoke speaks aloud the fears he has harboured for a  _ lifetime.  _

 

That he is  _ weak,  _ that he is  _ lacking. _

 

But Snoke is wrong, no matter how right his words feel, Ren knows the truth.

 

Rey  _ is _ his power. His  _ destiny. _

 

“She’s not…” His tongue is clumsy, thick with fear as he tries to find the words that have deserted him. To impress the truth of it onto the creature above him in a way he might understand. A way he might accept. “She is not a weakness, Master. She is strong, stronger than she knows. She is a great  _ asset _ to us, surely you must see that.”

 

“Her strength is not in question, Ren.” Snoke’s sighs, leaning further back in his throne. The sound burrowing down into his bones, striking him mute with terror. “It is your  _ weakness.  _ She is  _ poison  _ to you. _ ” _

 

“No… no she’s… I can’t live without her, Master.” He admits, pain lancing through him as his knees hit rock. The chill of the stone seeping up through him as he kneels before the throne. The very embodiment of the pitiful creature he has always known he is, willing to beg, to  _ plead,  _ anything to make Snoke see sense.

 

Anything to keep his world from splitting like this.

 

“I feared this would happen.” Disappointment echoes in Snoke’s words, cold and distant as he looks down at his broken apprentice. “Since the first time you came before me and did not speak of your new…  _ apprentice.  _ You should have made her strong. Made her worthy. Instead she has… broken you.” Ren swallows a whimper, a pathetic little sound as his Master’s steady words flay him. “I pray it’s not too late. That you will recover from this, now that I have had others remove the distraction for you.”

 

The words jerk his head up, feeling the hot sting of tears against his cheeks as the realization strikes.

 

No.

 

Not Rey.

 

He reaches for the bond, feeling the pull of her through it. Determined, frightened,  _ alive… _

 

And then  _ pain. _

 

It drives him to the floor as her terror overwhelms him. 

  
  



	43. The Unthinkable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Empires aren't the only things that might crumble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Alternate chapter title: "Uh oh spaghetti-os" :P   
> Huge shout out to everyone who has stuck with the fic this far, there's no way I'd be posting *chapter 43* if it wasn't for your kind comments and support. It truly does mean the world to me, so thank you, sincerely, for sticking with me! (hopefully you'll still be with me next chapter too ^^; eheheheeeee *wheeze*)
> 
> Rellgelina Jolie - thank you for taking precious time away from the fluffy hoard to beta this for me cupcake, if it had been me surrounded by tiny dogs you would have been abandoned in a heart beat #sorryaboutit :P )

  
  
  


She’s patching her way through the final firewall when she hears it. A faint, metallic clicking sound from across the room, accompanied by a hissing whine.

 

Her skin prickles, coldness washing over her as she tears her gaze away from the screen. A ventilation problem, now _ , perfect.  _ By the time she turns, confronts the off-white cloud billowing through the vents, it’s too late.

 

She plummets back through time as the scent hits her full force, sickly-sweet and insidious. Seeing the wreck, one of the oldest ones she’d worked, rusted and decayed. Remembering how she ran. Tripping over herself to get away. Abandoning three portions worth of salvage in the wreckage just to escape it. 

 

It’s the first rule of any scavenger.

 

A sweet smell in a wreck is a death sentence. 

 

A ruptured coolant line in an enclosed space would kill you faster than anything else in the desert. 

 

She’s moving on instinct, the present returning in a jolt as she bundles her cowl up around her face. Trying not to breathe as the sweetness turns sour inside her mouth, rapidly becoming blisteringly acrid. Her eyes already starting to weep as she rushes for the door, her sabotage efforts abandoned.

 

Maybe it was enough. Maybe it wasn’t.

 

The only thing she’s certain of is that if she stays in this room she’ll die.

 

The cloud is worming its way through the thick knit, crawling down into her lungs. Scraping her nose and throat roar as she struggles to work the mechanism at the door. There’s no time to process  _ how  _ a coolant line in an Imperial class base has broken. How the emergency system hasn’t gone into effect already.

 

There’s only the  _ escape. _

 

She has to get out.  _ Now.  _

 

The door panel flashes red. Over and over, each time she pushes the release mechanism. She finds the edge of the casing, fingernails splitting as she pries it open with her bare hands. Shaking hard as she tugs at the wires, thoughts trapped in the pounding in her ears as she bypasses the panel completely to try and force it to open.

 

Only it doesn’t.

 

It stays shut.

 

There are black spots in front of her eyes now. Vision blurring as the wet hacking of her breathing becomes too loud in the hush of the room. She’s taking in too much of the gas, even with her cowl wrapped tightly across her mouth. Her heart thundering like a machine against the gentle, endless hissing. 

 

This is  _ intentional. _

 

The thought hits her like a punch to the gut, making her already shaky legs buckle as she wavers in front of the panel.

 

There’s no accident, no broken piping or faulty override system. They’ve forced the lock. Trapped her in this room. 

 

They’re killing her.

 

_ Cowards. _

 

They aren’t brave enough to face her themselves, to challenge her to a fair fight. They’ve locked her up instead. Trying to  _ dispose  _ of her easily, impersonally.

 

A quick end to an unpleasant problem.

 

It’s almost enough to make her laugh. That she, lowly Rey of the desert, Technician 619, could be seen as such a threat. So terrifying they won’t even give her the decency of a proper death, a proper  _ fight _ .

 

Only it’s not funny, and the fact she’s choking on a laugh is a  _ bad  _ sign. 

 

The panic seizes her again. Sloshing through her rib cage as she casts out instinctively for  _ him.  _ For her life line.

 

There’s static in her head, faint and far away. Like he’s shouting her name, only there’s too much sand in her ears to hear. Unable to make out the words as she scrabbles for the cord. Unable to quite grasp hold of him with her numbing fingers.

 

All she can feel is the  _ fear. _

 

His fear.

 

His  _ pain. _

 

Her heart thunders erratically, unsteady little thumps as she realizes how much trouble he’s in. There’s copper in her mouth and lead in her bones as she fights through the haze. Vision tinting red as the distant pulse of his panic overwhelms her, trying with all her might to grasp onto the connection.

 

She pulls her saber from her waist, fingers unforgivably clumsy on the hilt as she struggles for the ignition.

 

Each breath bringing her closer to the brink of unconsciousness as it hums to life in her hand.

 

Every move costing her more than she can afford, nerves setting themselves on fire as she forces it into the space between the doors.

 

It doesn’t matter that the doors are durasteel. That she has only minutes left before the gas reaches her stomach and the world turns black.

 

She has to try. 

 

She has to save to him.

 

-

 

He has to save her.

 

The connection is flagging, his lungs burning inside of his chest with a second hand horror he can’t begin to comprehend. It’s like being plunged into an ocean on fire, her desperation clawing up inside of him as his fingers dig into the stone floor.

 

_ Rey. _

 

None of this matters. 

 

Snoke, Starkiller, the entirety of the First Order. His life. It’s _meaningless._ All that exists is _her_ and the seconds he’s wasting not getting to her side. He pulls himself upwards, mind racing ahead of him as he grasps onto the connection, trying to hold onto her through the fog. As if he could pull her to safety with the force of his will alone.

 

There is no question now.

 

He will abandon it all, forsake everything, for her. For the life they’ve only just started to share.

 

His head splinters.

 

The pain carving into his skull  as his back bows beneath the weight of it. Driving him back to the floor.

 

_ Snoke. _

 

Spectral claws stretch across the universe, embedding themselves in his mind. The Supreme Leader forcing his might through the weak cord that connects them still, turning it into a noose.

 

Snoke doesn’t seem to care that their bond is crumbling, a pale, broken imitation of what it once was. He carves fresh pathways between them instead. Splitting the universe in two like it’s nothing as he forces himself into Ren’s mind, reclaiming all the places that were once in his sole domain. The shadowed corners Snoke has owned since his infancy, twisting Ren’s strength against him as he dredges up all the darkness in his soul. 

 

Ren’s deepest, most intimate horrors.

 

He’s suffocating beneath them.

 

He can feel parts of himself sputtering into silence as he struggles against it, Snokes power drowning him in wave after wave of tar. Turning him numb, broken, as he fights to unbend himself.

 

To regain his feet.

 

It doesn’t matter that his skin feels like it’s melting from his bones, that his every secret nightmare is dancing before his eyes.

 

All he can think about is  _ her. _

 

_ Rey. _

 

Her pain. 

 

How he has to get to her.

 

The horror only grows. Snoke slicing deep into the soft tissue of his mind, scrambling around inside of his skull.  _ Useless.  _ His darkness whispers.  _ Worthless, weak creature. You deserve this. You’ve always deserved this. Give into it. _

 

Only he can’t listen. Not now. Not with so much on the line.

 

Snoke is still speaking, even as he hollows Ren out with his fury.

 

“Submit.” He shouts over the rushing in Ren’s ears. “Make the sacrifice. Let me  _ help _ you, Apprentice. I’m doing this for your  _ own good.” _

 

_ Lies. _

 

Cloying, corrosive lies that do nothing to soften the fresh wounds Snoke is opening inside of his head. New cracks in his already broken consciousness, seeping wounds that even now aren’t enough to drown out the  _ other _ connection.

 

Rey is still suffering.

 

Reaching out for him as urgently as he’s reaching out for her.

 

_ Dying. _

 

He can’t let this happen.

 

_ Snoke won’t take her away from him. _

 

Something breaks within him, a dam he didn’t know he’d built. Something so deep, so hidden it  _ frightens  _ him. 

 

The rage is unstoppable.

 

It spills out like the tide. White, icy fury that burns through him, leaving no part of him untouched. A sick, still kind of rage that consumes all else. No pain, no thoughts. Just the  _ feeling. _

 

He closes his eyes, brow creasing as he seizes onto the claws of Snoke’s power, stilling them inside his own head. 

 

And  _ pulls. _

 

Sinking his power into his Master, wrapping every inch of his strength around the intruder in his mind and  _ dragging.  _ He feels Snoke struggle to react, the power flailing and thrashing but it’s too late. He gets one foot underneath him, then the other, dragging himself upright in front of the throne.

 

There will be no escape now.

 

-

 

She’s not certain but she’s pretty sure her lungs have turned themselves inside out in the last few minutes. 

 

The screech of metal melting beneath her blade drifting further and further away from her as her limbs become someone else’s.

 

It would be so easy to give up.

 

To lie down.

 

It would only take seconds to stop the pain. One good lungful of poisoned air and it’d all be over with. All the pain, the fear and rage.

 

She could just sleep.

 

Her eyes are burning, lids turning heavy as she slumps against the handle of her saber, not quite sure what it is keeping her up anymore. Keeping her blade pressed into the molten durasteel of the door.

 

Something changes inside of her head.

 

A sharp absence that has her eyes snapping open.

 

_ Ren. _

 

The place he should be, it’s…  _ wrong.  _ Empty and full at once. The cord that binds them loosening, turning to static inside of her head as he slips away from her. Somewhere she can’t follow.

 

Terror seizes her, stilling her lungs.

 

This can’t happen.

 

Not  _ now.  _ Not after  _ everything  _ it’s taken to get here.

 

She bites her teeth together, forcing her leaden limbs to  _ move.  _ The echoing emptiness driving the numbness from her hands. The pain secondary, forgotten in comparison to the  _ fear.  _ Letting it take over, letting it fill her to the brim as she forges everything she has into one final, desperate push.

 

The door shatters like glass.

 

Exploding outwards as she shoves what’s left of her strength into it and prays that it’s enough, as she stumbles into the trio of waiting storm troopers.

 

Blasters raised squarely at her face.

 

-

 

Once Ren starts he can’t stop. 

 

Holding open every channel his  _ Master  _ has carved between them as he rips into the meat of Snoke’s mind from halfway across the galaxy. Chewing him up from the inside. The power burns him, scarring everything it touches but he keeps going. Funneling every inch of pain and rage and loss and longing into this final act. This desperate, dying bid for freedom.

 

For  _ retribution. _

 

Losing himself completely in the waves of power as he tears his Master’s mind to  _ pieces. _

 

The screams are endless.

 

High pitched, keening shrieks that echo long after Snoke’s mouth ceases to be a mouth, long after the his jaw tears and bones crumble. Ren’s soul splintering along with the figure in the chair. Still tearing into the nothingness even after the figure in the throne has torn itself down to pieces.

 

_ Molasses. _

 

The holo flickering on, empty but for the echoes.

 

The screams chase around his head as the power fades and the darkness retreats.

 

As the madness rushes into the emptiness that remains.

 

He’s destroyed the man who, for the longest time, had been his only connection in the world. The one who had owned him, body and soul. Cared for and controlled him. Raised him up and broken him down in turn.

 

The face of his destiny. Infallable, untouchable.

 

_ Dead. _

 

He’s breathing hard, gasping for air as he stares unseeing at the empty throne.

 

At his brutal handiwork.

 

As he struggles to remember  _ why.  _ Why he’s torn apart the bedrock of his world, why he’s made his mind a world of jagged glass and gaping emptiness. 

 

Then he remembers.

 

_ Rey. _

 

The madness chokes up inside his throat, squeezing it shut as he reaches for her. The memories returning in a hard rush as he scrabbles for the thin golden thread of her, the silent name that’s keeping all his broken pieces together still against all odds. 

 

Only he can’t feel her.

 

Can’t feel  _ anything  _ but the horror. The hole he’s torn in the universe.

 

Lost in an echo of an echo of an echo as he strides for the door on unsteady legs, still drowning in the shockwaves of what has come to pass. He can’t keep a thought in his head. Even the despair, the abject self-hatred can’t hold him now, he is hollowness made flesh. A walking amalgamation of rage and need and  _ nothingness. _

 

He has only one purpose now. One way of making himself whole again.

 

And if it’s too late, if she’s already dead...

 

He will destroy it  _ all. _

  
  
  



	44. Collide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things change, some things don't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Ahhh sorry about the cliff hanger there guys, y'all know I've got an addiction! :P My huge thanks to everyone who's still here reading and commenting, I can't believe it's been so long already but hey - we've *almost* made it! Fingers crossed it'll be smoother sailing from here on out! ;-)
> 
> Rell-Ralphio - you are the beeee-eee-eee-eeEeEesssttttttt! Thanks for betaing precious mountain flower! <3 Only a few chapters to go, promise! :-P))

  
  


 

 

The Stormtroopers falter in front of her, jerking backwards as the door explodes outwards and she tumbles through. 

 

Fresh air.

 

She sucks it by the mouthful even as her bruised lungs protest against the sudden rush. Momentarily dizzy as it dances across her tongue, the sweetest thing she’s ever tasted as the poison disperses in the open space. Quickly filtering away in the bases working ventilators, harmless when freed from it’s confinement.

 

_ Unlike her. _

 

She is anything but harmless.

 

The fear still owns her limbs but she’s getting stronger by the second. The buzzing darkness in her head only fuelling her determination, strengthening each bone.

 

She drags herself upward, firming her shoulders as she swallows down precious oxygen. Determined to face this new threat standing tall, meeting the drones waiting for her with her head held high. They obviously weren’t expecting a live target, a  _ furious  _ target.

 

They were expecting a body.

 

The thought sends fresh life into her veins and fury into her muscles. Letting her lift her saber a little higher, keep her back a little straighter. It helps her forget that these faceless strangers were once her friends. That, in their own way, they are victims of this situation just as much as she is. 

 

It doesn’t matter to her.

 

Not now.

 

Not when they’re standing between her and Ren.

 

She doesn’t have enough space in her heart for compassion, not when she can’t  _ feel  _ him like she always could before. Can’t feel anything but the sudden void in the fabric of the universe. Unsettled on a level she doesn’t have words for, has never  _ needed  _ words for.

 

It’s always just been…  _ there.  _ Balanced, steady.

 

And now…

 

Now there’s  _ nothing.  _ And it terrifies her.

 

She swallows hard, there are no questions any more. No morals or reasonings. There’s only her need to find him, to  _ save  _ him. To free them from this waking nightmare once and for all. 

 

The troopers’ blasters hang level with her chest, aimed with military precision but as yet unfired. A split second hanging between them, hushed and still as they stare at her, time slowing down to a crawl around them.

 

She doesn’t give them a chance to shoot first.

 

Instead she attacks.

 

Her blade hums in a wide arc, deflecting blaster bolts on instinct as they finally open fire. Turning her stumble into a strike as she’s too slow on the third shot, catching it in the side. She can’t let it stop her, moving through the pain until it’s all blurred into one. One dull, body-wide  _ throb  _ she forces to the back of her mind as she swings at them.

 

They thought they’d find her  _ weak.  _ They thought they’d find her  _ broken. _

 

They were wrong.

 

Each stab of her saber strengthens her, the resolve to  _ live _ turning to steel inside her shaking bones. They were right to try and poison her, she thinks as the final trooper falls beneath her blade, they don’t stand a  _ chance  _ against her fury.

 

There’s a secondary squadron coming towards her, the metallic pounding of their feet cutting through her head as she leaves the quarters behind. Five this time, in formation. Maybe they’ve been sent for her, maybe they’re just patrolling, it doesn’t matter. She’s ready for them.

 

The First Order has underestimated her for the last time.

 

She pushes forward with a single minded determination, moving through sheer stubborn force of will as she puts into motion everything she’s ever learnt. From the desert, from Ren. From  _ herself. _

 

There’s no time to waste here, each strike skilled. Swift and precise. Dropping them like  _ rag dolls.  _ No room for hesitation as she leaves them behind, not even pausing to see if they’re still breathing. 

 

Ren needs her.

 

-

 

Everything’s in pieces.

 

His head, his heart, his  _ world. _

 

She’s the only reason left to him and he  _ needs  _ her. Consumed with his own selfishness as he strides through the cold stone corridors. Searching,  _ desperate.  _ Needing to put himself back together with her hands, to reclaim the broken fragments of his sanity before the world tilts too far into the dark and he can’t find his way back again.

 

He tries to picture her, to anchor himself with her memory, but it warps behind his eyes. The darkness tainting the image until all he can see is Rey, eerily still, slumped against the cold steel floor. Her bright eyes turned dull,  _ lifeless. _

 

An accusation on her parted lips.

 

_ Why didn’t you save me, Ren? _

 

_ Why couldn’t you save me? _

 

Snoke towering above him. Laughing.  _ Screaming. _

 

He clenches his hands, trying to chase the vision away. Broken nails weeping inside of his gloves as he  _ squeezes.  _ It’s not enough. The pain can’t fix him now. Can’t fill the void or save him from the nightmares he’s making for himself as he searches.

 

Lights flicker above him as he stalks the halls, retracing his steps as someone barks orders over the comm. He shuts out the noise, it’s not about  _ her  _ so it doesn’t matter. Inconsequential. Inconvenient.

 

And besides, who is there who could order him now? 

 

He tries to block the thought out, focusing only on reaching for her. His own powers are weak, useless, finding only  _ darkness  _ where she should be when he stretches out his mind over and over. The cord between his ribs broken, bleeding from within. So consumed by it that for a moment he doesn’t recognize the dark figure that stumbles around the corner in front of him, her face tensed in blind determination. Her saber raised, a snarl painted on her lips as she strides towards him.

 

Pale and bruised and bloodied. 

 

_ Rey. _

 

_ Alive. _

 

His feet lock against the stone floor, heart squeezing so tightly it stops his breath. This is a trick. Another cruel vision he has conjured to torment himself with, it has to be. He still can’t  _ feel  _ her, can’t feel anything but the emptiness in his head where she should be. 

 

But she’s  _ there.  _

 

Striding unseeing onwards as he falters in front of her, his ribs constricting in a harsh gasp as she eclipses everything else. The universe shrinking down to the sharp lines of her face, the hazel burn of her eyes as she forces her way down the corridor.

 

She looks like she’s going to war.

 

_ For him. _

 

He can pinpoint the exact moment she sees him. The sudden violent jerk backwards, the way her eyes widen. Stumbling to a halt as she gapes at him in disbelief. Her saber wavering, dying as she pulls in an unsteady breath. As she searches his face with her gaze.

 

_ Real. _

 

Relief washes through him, so alien at first he almost doesn’t recognize it as it rushes over his scorched nerves. The thin spark of their connection rekindling in his chest. Suddenly his feet work again, the universe has given her back to him and he will not waste another second of it. 

 

“Ren.” Her voice rocks through him, his skin burning as she catches his face between her hands. Chest aching at her closeness, sending his heart into palpitations as he clenches his bloodied fingers against her waist. Needing to drown in her. “I thought- Ri’ia, I thought-”

 

“You’re alive-” His voice is broken even to his own ears, cracked and unsure as she traces the freckles on his face. Turning his face into her palm as he pulls her closer still, his world wobbling on its new axis. “He said… I thought…  _ You’re alive. _ ”

 

His brain is skipping like a broken holo, unable to do anything but stare. Breathing her in by the lungful as her warmth seeps into the chilled places in his bones. Shoring up his weaknesses with her strength.

 

_ She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.  _

 

He’s stuck on the thought like it’s the last one left to him.

 

“So are you.” She’s trembling beneath his hands, paler than he’s ever seen her as she looks up at him. “I couldn’t feel you - Ren, what happened?”

 

_ What happened? _

 

The static bursts in his ears. Darkness overflowing as it all rushes back to him. 

 

The empty throne. Pain. Darkness.  _ Snoke. _

 

_ What has he done? _

 

-

 

She almost didn’t recognize him.

 

The hulking creature at the end of the hall, towering and  _ empty.  _ A space where a person should be, emanating darkness like body heat. 

 

It’s not until she’s got her hands clenched against his skin and his fingers bruising her hips that she can even accept it’s real. That he could possibly have survived whatever darkness has caused such damage to the fabric of the Force.

 

The relief is almost unbearable, dizzy with it as she claws him closer. Mindless to the blood still dripping from her side as she feels the first frayed edge of their bond reknit itself inside her chest. Her abused lungs screaming in protest as she crushes herself against him.

 

She doesn’t care.

 

The pain is just proof this is real. That, against all odds, they’re both here.

 

Somehow they’re both  _ alive. _

 

She had thought… when the bond had broken, the world turned to electric noise… she had thought…

 

She swallows hard, so wrapped up in the thought that it takes her far too long to take in what she’s seeing. Why she hasn’t noticed the change in him until now, as she looks up with the question still hanging between them.

 

_ What happened? _

 

His  _ eyes. _

 

They’ve…  _ changed. _

 

She can’t keep from flinching as their strangeness sinks in. No longer the familiar dark eyes she knows better than her own, but hard  _ yellow.  _ Bloodshot and alien. Starbursts in his skull.

 

He’s looking at her in horror as she tries to make sense of this change, panic playing out across his face. She doesn’t need the bond to feel his emotions, to know that the pale shadow of his feelings at the corner of her mind is  _ terror.  _

 

Guilt sweeps through her, whatever it means… whatever happened. It doesn’t matter. Behind them he’s still  _ hers. _

 

“Ren…” She smoothes her palm against his cheek, pulling him down towards her. Forcing his focus back to her as she tries to keep her tone even. Tries to project a calm she can’t quite believe herself. “What happened?”

 

“Rey... I-I…” She can see the toll the question is taking on him, the struggle behind his gaze as he tries not to lose himself in whatever horror has occurred. “I can’t…”

 

Whatever he’s done has  _ changed  _ him.

 

Changed everything. 

 

The gaping hole in the force, the yellow eyes… it all adds up to something so dark, so powerful she can’t begin to conceive it. Can’t even think of what it must have  _ cost  _ him. But she knows,  _ knows,  _ it has something to do with Snoke. 

 

He went to get the Supreme Leader’s blessing, to secure their future.

 

And Snoke… Snoke has caused  _ this. _

 

The anger  _ burns  _ inside of her. A hatred unlike any she’s ever felt towards the creature that could do this to Ren. But reality won’t give her time to fix it, to let her catch her breath against the pouring darkness.

 

The emergency lights are still flashing, the orders getting progressively more frantic as they spit out over the comms. A 2-14. She remembers the code from her training.

 

The base is under attack, the shields have been compromised.

 

“It’s okay,” She nods, smoothing back his hair. Only realizing now that his mask is gone, missing entirely. “Whatever happened it’s  _ okay.  _ We’ll get through it.” 

 

They will. They’ve gotten through everything else after all.

 

He kisses her then, like it’s the first time. The last time. Desperation given flesh as he lays claim to her mouth.Suddenly it no longer matters that his eyes are the wrong colour, or that their bond is still lying in pieces between them. That a squadron of stormtroopers could come around that corner at any moment and find them.

 

They’re together.

 

They’re alive.

 

Another code crackles through the comms, so loud it jerks her back. Leaving her gasping through burning lungs as she rests her forehead against his. She tries to ignore it, tries to keep herself in this perfect moment, but then it’s being repeated and she can feel her stomach spiralling to the floor.

 

Code 7-910.

 

All technical crew to their positions, ten minutes until the weapon goes live.

 

Her chest tightens as she realizes all of her efforts to sabotage the planet-sized weapon have only delayed the inevitable.

 

Starkiller will be fired.

  
  


 

 


	45. The Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're teetering on the edge of it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Ahhh sorry this one is so late! The next one hopefully won't take so long though... ;-)  
> As always this, and the entire bloody fic, is dedicated to you wonderfully kind folk out there still taking the time to read and comment. This whole experience is just entirely beyond the realm of belief to me - I sincerely hope you enjoy this chapter and the last few that follow! :P
> 
> Rellary Poppins - Sweet summer child, best beta, and true friend. You get me babes!))

  
  
  


Starkiller will be fired.

 

He sees the way the words affect her, the way she draws back. Eyes widening as a shudder rips through her, the conflict in her gaze as she looks up at him.

 

He knows her, better than he has ever known anyone else in his life. He knows that she can’t let it happen. That she won’t let another solar system be destroyed when she could do something to stop it. 

 

Through the buzzing in his skull he feels it, the momentary wash of… remorse. His heart sinking as, for one guilty moment, he wishes he could think like her. That he still had the courage of his convictions.

 

All he wants to do is run. 

 

He’s already half-blinded by it. His own selfish need rising up inside of him, hands itching to snatch her up. To vanish from this place while there’s still time. The darkness is suffocating him, his limbs shaking with the urge to  _ leave.  _ To get out of this place before someone discovers what he’s done. 

 

Before someone tries to take her away from him again. 

 

He is a creature without reason, without identity. All he has left is  _ her.  _ And she wants to stay...

 

“We can’t let them do this.” She’s still looking up at him, beseeching him with her eyes. Trying to stand firm even when he can see her wavering, feeling her wanting to run almost as much as he does. “We can’t let them fire this thing again. We have to stop them, Ren. For good this time.” 

 

His throat tightens, feeling the madness throbbing beneath his skin. The desperation that turns his hands to claws, his heart into an engine. But he can’t fall apart while she’s looking at him.

 

The void can’t own him when her skin is warm against his, her pulse racing beneath his fingertips.

 

She is stronger that his darkness.

 

She is his reason.

 

And he won’t let her face this alone.

 

“I know.” His voice still isn’t quite his own, clutching onto the paper-thin resurrection of their bond in his chest. Taking her hand without hesitation when she holds it out to him.

 

He has already destroyed so much today after all… 

  
  


-

 

The corridor splits ahead of her.

 

Left or right, left or right. The blueprints dance behind her eyes as she leads them deeper into the base. Trying to focus on the warmth of his fingers tangled in hers instead of the needle-sharp pain still pricking inside her chest.

 

She has to focus. Has to ground herself.

 

She stops at the intersection, squeezing her eyes tightly shut for a handful of seconds as she tries to remember the maps she’s seen. The technical specs and floor plans she’s stumbled across as a lowly technician. The bridge will be the easiest way to stop the weapon... if they can make it past the squadrons of troopers guarding it.

 

_ If. _

 

She shoots a glance back at the man at her heels, feeling the way his fingers tremble in hers. His face ash-white and distant still. Her side throbbing in time to the beat of her heart as she contemplates what it might cost them to try…

 

No. It’s not an option. She’ll do anything in her power to stop this weapon. Pay any price, her life, her freedom. 

 

But not his. 

 

He is a price she will never pay.

 

_ Left then. _

 

“This way.” She nods, bluffing a confidence she doesn’t feel as she sinks her teeth into the flesh of her lip. Tasting blood as she commits to her shaky plans. “There’s a technician’s station in the Oscillator chamber. If we can get there I might be able to overload the core.”

 

_ Maybe.  _ She adds silently.  _ Hopefully. _

 

Ren doesn’t reply, he doesn’t need to. The fact he’s still following willingly on her heels is enough, that he’s trusting this next part of their future to her. His eyes have faded some, not quite the brown she remembers but closer. A murky orange that calms her just a little.

 

Just enough that she can keep going.

 

She leads them onwards, away from the action. The unmasked commander and the blood stained girl. Avoiding the patrols at all cost as she drags them down, the First Order has already tried to kill her twice today. She’s not willing to give them a third chance.

 

She knows in her heart it’s not the troopers fault, they’re bred to be weapons by a higher power. Called to serve. To kill. What matters is who gave the order, Hux,  _ Snoke… _

 

She glances at Ren. At the pallor of his face and the new creases in his brow.

 

Those orange eyes.

 

Maybe Snoke won’t be so much of a problem anymore.

 

They narrowly avoid a squadron on patrol as they duck into the cavernous chamber at the centre of the base, her stomach going out from under her as she makes the mistake of glancing down.  _ And down.  _

 

She has scaled wrecks twenty stories high, free-climbed hundreds of feet inside of sunken Star Destroyers. But this… this endless  _ void  _ into the planet’s core is another matter.

 

Swallowing tightly she tugs at Ren’s hand, pulling him faster across the endless steel bridge that keeps them from the abyss. Not wanting to linger here any longer than they have to, especially with the countdown ticking ever closer to destruction.

 

Her tampering before has only delayed the inevitable, her heart leaping when a new code goes out - technical complications, ten minute reset. But it’s not enough.

 

She has to do  _ more. _

 

Pull at the wires, cut the power cords,  _ something. _

 

If she can somehow take out the maintenance controls for the main oscillating mechanism they might stand a  _ chance  _ of beating this thing.

 

Fate has other ideas.

 

They’re only half way across the catwalk when she hears it, a voice shouting across at them. Familiar and yet unnervingly out of place.

 

_ “Ben-” _

 

Her heart stutters.

 

Not here. 

 

_ Not now. _

 

-

 

The voice echoes out of Ren’s memories, stinging over every raw nerve as he turns slowly on his heel. Rey’s hand slipping from his.

 

The old man is waiting. Watching him with dark, wary eyes from the other side of the chamber. As if Ren has somehow conjured him there, another nightmare made flesh. Another personal demon come to judge him.

 

Just like  _ Snoke  _ had judged him.

 

How many of his ghosts can he disappoint in one day?

 

“Han Solo.” He says the name on instinct, muscles tensing as he tries to keep himself from being catapulted backwards into the past. Watching the scene unfold through someone else’s eyes as his panic grows fresh claws, sinking itself into the tortured wreck of his mind anew as he stares across the divide. 

 

The chasm inside his chest is splitting along its fault lines, right between his ribs. Leaving him teetering on the edge of the abyss in more ways than one.

 

They were so close to freedom. To getting as far away from this place as they could. To relegating it all to a bad dream. 

 

So,  _ so  _ close.

 

But his personal hell is still unfolding, and now it’s wearing his father’s face.

 

A hand wraps around his arm, a small figure stepping in front of him. Her shoulders tensed in readiness. The thin thread in his chest pulses, growing stronger by the second as her feelings seep into him like the tide. 

 

He welcomes it, however selfish it might be, her frustration is better than the terrible schism the old man’s appearance has caused.

 

Her strength is better than his darkness.

 

-

 

“What’re you doing here Han?” 

 

She steps in front of Ren almost without thinking, feeling the way the darkness rises up inside of him at the sight of the man who had once been his father. It spills through the fledgling thread of their connection like crude oil into her veins, tainting everything it touches.

 

She  _ can’t  _ let him fall into it again, not after what’s already happened today.

 

Not when she could stop it.

 

“I’m destroying this weapon and getting my son back.” Han stands firm, chest puffed up with an arrogance that is far too close to his son’s for her liking. It makes her ribs ache in sympathy as Ren stands silent beside her, a living statue. “And rescuing you too, if you want.” Han offers that last part with a one-shouldered shrug. “The kid seemed pretty keen on it.”

 

He waves a hand upwards, where - if she really stretches her powers - she can feel a distant, familiar presence. Finn is here too then.

 

She swallows hard. Opening her mouth to say something, to beg them to leave. To not put Ren, her, _ them  _ through this again. Another futile attempt to salvage the past, one that leaves them balancing on the edge of disaster with every word. But something in her mind skips, catching hard on the first part of his speech instead.

 

“Destroy the weapon-” She repeats, mouth going dry as she eyes him warily from across the catwalk. Mind racing as she forces herself to prioritize. The sooner they stop Starkiller the sooner they can all get out of here. “ _ How? _ ”

 

His eyebrows shoot up, defensive to the last as the blaster in his hand wavers. As if he’s thinking about raising it. She can feel the muscles in Ren’s arms jump beneath her hand, squeezing tightly to stop him from doing something they might all regret.

 

“You gonna try and stop us, kid?” The old man asks, gaze shooting between them.

 

“No,” She shakes her head, chest tight with what she’s about to do. Sending silent apologies to Ren through their growing connection as she meets Han’s eyes. “I’m going to help.”

 

There’s a tense moment of silence and then Han is shrugging again, lifting his bag up.

 

“We’re gonna blow the place up.” He’s so  blasé about it she can’t keep from glaring at him. Her own anger rising as he drags the moment out before huffing wearily, rolling his eyes as he adds.  “With a little help from the fighter squadron up there of course. We weaken these supports, one good shot into the thermal oscillator should do it.”

 

She bites her cheek, shooting a look back at the shadow at her shoulder. It’s a good plan, better than hers. She can hear the far-off scream of fighters overhead, her mind already cycling through the outcomes. If they do this, if it works, they could stop the weapon for good.

 

And if it means they can get out of this situation a moment sooner she’ll do it.

 

For both of them.

 

She takes a brash step forward, holding out her hand for the explosives. Looking quickly back when Ren doesn’t follow her, reading the stillness in his face with guilt thundering in her veins. Seeing the faint nod as she walks away.

 

This is something she’ll have to do alone, he has his own problem to face.

 

-

 

He watches the way Rey handles the situation from miles away. 

 

Seeing how willing she is to jump in front of him. To protect him from his past.

 

There’s an emptiness in him as he looks on. Seeing the way she falters when the old man presents his plan. Feeling her wariness echoing into his ribs as she takes the bag of thermal charges from him with a terse nod. The remorse as she looks back up at him, a silent question in her eyes.

 

Begging for forgiveness for working with his enemy. For engaging with his ghosts.

 

For leaving him to them as she works to save a billion, billion lives.

 

Her hand flutters against his arm, her eyes shining in the red light of the dying sun.

 

He nods.

 

She has to try, he knows it, and he…

 

He has to face the ghost of his father.

 

It’s time.

 

Her hand brushes across his before she darts away to set the charges, saying everything she doesn’t need to speak aloud.

 

_ I’m still here. We’ll get through this. Whatever happens, we’ll get through everything. _

 

He’s not so sure, without her touch, her presence, the shadows are clawing back into him again.

 

“ _ Ben-”  _ Han starts again and the darkness gains another inch of traction.

 

“There is no Ben Solo.” He says, his tone impassive. Hollow. Clinging onto the stillness for as long as he can even as he feels the darkness inching it’s way up into his throat. The conflict he's tried to bury for half a lifetime reawakening with a vengeance. “He died a long time ago.”

 

He did didn’t he? It doesn’t matter that the memories are still there, that they dance behind his eyes as he faces his past head on. The boy is dead. The knight is dying.

 

Only the man remains.

 

Han looks frustrated. Fresh creases splitting his face as he crosses the catwalk to stand before him over the emptiness. The same slouching gait, the easy stride that walks straight from his past into this unfamiliar present.

 

Ren holds his ground even as his shoulders tense. Even as every part of him not given over to the stillness begs him to run. To give into his own weakness and leave this confrontation before it can begin. To follow Rey, chase her heels so he doesn’t have to do this. Go back down this path.

 

He stands firm.

 

“That’s what Snoke  _ wants  _ you to believe.” Han says, hands balling into fists at his side. Stopping inches in front of him and glaring up with the sheer force of will that used to make him think Han could control the very fates. “My son is alive.”

 

Ren remembers him as taller. A towering giant of a man. All strength and smiles and shouting. Remembering the time the boy was  _ alive.  _ Suddenly eight years old again and standing in front of his father, trying to explain how he’d broken yet  _ another  _ data pad in a fit of childish rage. Feeling the first threads of  _ distaste  _ colouring his father’s thoughts.

 

An angry wariness at his own son.

 

Now he’s looking down at him. This withered husk. This broken legend.

 

He doesn’t reply.

 

“Please, _ Ben.”  _ That name again. “Snoke is using you for your power. When he gets what he wants, he’ll crush you -  _ both  _ of you. You know it’s true.”

 

The panic is breaking through his calm. Splintering the still facade as Han invokes his Master’s name and Rey’s in the same sentence, breaking him into new pieces. Old wounds and new combining until he feels like one walking  _ hurt. _

 

“Snoke is dead.” He hears himself say it. Feels his breath hitch at the still confession, the panic thundering around his chest rising. Sweeping away his reason, throwing him into the river of his darkness once more. “I killed him.”

 

“ _ Ben.”  _ That  _ name _ . Not his name. “That… that’s  _ great.” _

 

It’s too much. 

 

The impotent darkness inside of him rises up all at once. Unstoppable as the tide as he looks at the old man. 

 

Great?  _ It’s great? _

 

That he has killed his true mentor. That he has at last managed to please this… this withered  _ memory  _ of a father. The man who should have protected him from this. Who should have kept him from ever having to be in this position in the first place.

 

Who should have  _ loved _ him. 

 

The pain he’s repressed for a lifetime roars up inside of him, bursting through him until he can’t think or see or believe anything but the anger.

 

He’s choking on it.

 

Snoke had stayed when Han had left.

 

_ I’ll be back before you know it, Ben. It’s only a few months. _

 

_ I’ll never leave you, child. I’ll always be here… _

 

Snoke had accepted him when Han couldn’t.

 

_ I don’t understand it Leia, I don’t see what good I could do for a kid like that… _

 

_ They never understood you. But I do. Come to me. _

 

Snoke had made him  _ strong  _ when Han had only seen weakness.

 

_ Gee kid, stop crying. You’ll learn a lot with Uncle Luke. _

 

_ Use your pain, apprentice. It is your true strength. _

 

Ren has already killed one father today. Would it not be fitting to destroy another? He has always been expected to do this, to sever himself from the endless cloying nightmare of his bloodline. His Master has been training him for it for so long now.

 

To free himself of it.

 

The past, the expectations. If he does this they could be  _ safe  _ from it all at last. His saber rushes to life in his hand, almost without his notice. The buzz of plasma echoing over and over in his ears as he draws back the blade. An extension of his rage. A manifestation of his desperation.

 

This could be it.

 

His last tribute to his dead master.

 

His last tribute to the broken child.

 

He raises the weapon, a vicious burning in his chest as the darkness claims him.

  
  



	46. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They face the consequences of their actions the best way they know how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Oh god there was so much I wanted to say in this last little authorial note but now I'm here I'm just... gah! Thank you. Seriously, truly, from the bottom of my heart - thank you. I never set out to write a story this long, to be honest with you I didn't even think I could, and I sure as hell never thought it would get half as many kind readers and commenters. I can honestly say you guys have changed my life and inspired me like nothing before - you've given me the confidence to keep writing when I wanted to give up. Thank you. I truly hope you enjoy this last little bit of the ride <3
> 
> Rellie (aka Rellerella, aka Rellasauraus Rex, aka Rellatrix Lestrange, aka Rellen Degenerous, aka Sophie (ahahaha yeahhh I remember that kid.)) I can't believe this is probably the last time in this fic I'll get to give you a nickname! :'-) I will never be able to thank you enough for the hard work you've put into beta'ing this fic, listening to me whine (at length), helping me plot, restoring my fragile sensibilities during the dark times and partying with me during the good. You are too kind and talented for your own good! Just... thanks PTTFL, you are my hero! <3))

 

 

She forces her feet forward, knuckles white around the top of the bag of explosives. Trying desperately to fix her attention on the task at hand and not on the guilt still thrumming through her as she leaves Ren to face his past... alone.

 

Her hands are shaking as she sets the first charge, teeth clenched tight as she goes through the motions. Needing to work faster, cleaner. To get back to him as soon as she’s able, even though she knows, deep down, that this is something he has to face alone. 

 

Something he has to decide for himself.

 

She can only keep her eyes ahead. Keep trying to stop the nightmare of Starkiller before the destruction can begin again. Knowing now in her heart that this is not an act of heroism on her part, but of _survival._ Knowing that, no matter how much she might long to leave it someone else, she can’t now. She has to see this done before she can move on with her life.

 

Otherwise a part of her will always be trapped here. 

 

Will always be wondering.

 

No, she  _ has  _ to do this. Has to at least try to save something other than herself, even as she hopes, selfishly,  _ desperately,  _ that this act might gain her some good will from the universe at last. Might  _ fix  _ her somehow. 

 

Maybe if she does this the cosmos will cut her a break at last. Spare her some of the death and desolation her life, _their lives,_ seem to have been bound by for so long now. The loneliness and blood that has informed their every action.

 

Maybe if she does this their debt to the universe will be repaid.

 

At least for now.

 

So she focuses herself, attention fixed firmly on the little metal explosives in her hands as she tries to breathe through the back-wash of fear that’s filling her chest. Ren’s feelings dripping into her in tiny, tidal increments of darkness. A testament that their connection is strengthening again at least, each little pulse proving that it’s back where it should be. Ren’s emotions uneasy but controllable.

 

Until the bond ignites.

 

Burning so violently, so  _ suddenly  _ it leaves her gasping. A fever pitch of darkness that screams through her, scorching out everything but the  _ sounds.  _ The sharp buzz of a plasma blade roaring to life. The anguished howl from the wookie working opposite her, and the shout from the friend standing on the balcony above them.

 

Her own ragged breathing.

 

The audience to this potential destruction.

 

She whips around, neck cracking as the rage inside of her reaches it’s peak. Spilling so hot and hard through her she can barely comprehend it.

 

_ Ren. _

 

She watches, mute with terror, as Ren stands poised on the edge of something he might never come back from. Unsure of whose panic is overwhelming her more... 

 

His or her own.

 

_ - _

 

_ STOP. _

 

For a moment he thinks that she’s spoken, that somehow Rey has crossed the void between them. Feeling the phantom grasp of hands pushing against his chest. Holding him back from the edge of it. But the room is echoing in it’s silence now and she’s still standing frozen across from him, her fingers slack around the last charge.

 

It’s not her.

 

It’s not her voice that has him frozen in place, saber still raised.  _ Ready.  _

 

Through the eddying waves of darkness he feels it, the unnamed scrap in the middle of his chest. The nebulous construct that exists outside of Ben Solo, outside of Kylo Ren. The part that seems to have taken control of his hands as he falters in the middle of his strike, looking once more into the eyes of his father.

 

Eyes that no longer burn with frustration, with horror or disappointment.

 

But with  _ acceptance. _

 

As if he’s almost  _ grateful  _ for what Ren’s about to do. The punishment he is about to exact.

 

Like he’s already forgiven him for it.

 

Like he’s  _ asking  _ for forgiveness in return.

 

Ren finds himself stumbling back, heart beating itself bloody inside of his chest.

 

If he does this, if he gives into this darkness again… it will never end. He will never be able to claw himself out of the void. Not with Snoke’s hands still wrapped over his around the saber hilt, his voice in his head begging him to finish it. 

 

If he does this then Snoke will have  _ won. _

 

Ren will never be worthy of  _ her.  _ Of himself. Forced and fixed into the mould his Master had cast him in. Lost to everything but the darkness.

 

The saber dies.

 

“Come back with me.” Han pleads, his eyes shining in the last light of a dying sun as he presses a weathered hand against Ren’s cheek. “We miss you.” There’s a thickness in his voice that wedges itself between Ren’s ribs, even as Han raises an eyebrow in a wavering attempt at humour. “You can bring your girlfriend, your mother wants to meet her.”

 

His head is buzzing with so much static emptiness that it takes him forever just to make sense of the words. His throat tight, eyes burning as the warmth of his father’s touch seeps into him. Every second of his life suddenly racing across his mind at once, bright moments and dark nights. Horrors and heartache and those brief, shining seconds in between.

 

He sees the blood on his hands. All of it. So deep he’s drowning in it.

 

“The things I’ve done…” His voice shakes, hands trembling as he tries to keep his head above the red level.

 

“It doesn’t matter.” Han promises, his hand dropping to Ren’s shoulder. Squeezing.  “None of it matters. Please son, please come  _ home.” _

 

Ren’s swallowing pain by the mouthful. Torn so perfectly in two that he can barely breathe through it. Lost so completely he can’t speak.

 

-

 

Her heart is beating fit to burst, thundering against her ribs as she struggles to even her breathing. Fear turning to shock. Shock to…  _ relief.  _

 

A pride so deep, so fervent it catches her unaware. Rushing through her like fire.

 

She knows the divide in Ren better than anyone else. She’s seen the whole ugly history of his bloodline played out from all sides, information pieced together from memories that aren’t her own. Feelings she’s borrowed and scavenged and echoed in turn.

 

She knows how easy it would be for him to end it.

 

To close this chapter for good in the only way he knows how, in blood.

 

But he  _ hasn’t.  _

 

He has chosen life.

 

And it has cost him greatly.

 

Her thoughts are racing, ricocheting around her skull as she forces herself to look away. Trying to hold herself together just long enough to set the final charge, shuddering as the mechanism whirs and locks into place on the support. 

 

Her work is done.

 

She sucks in a harsh breath, stumbling forward on shaking legs. The bag falling unnoticed from her fingers as she gives her full attention to the scene unfolding in front of her. The one she doesn’t know her place in. Uncertain if she has any right to interrupt this fragile interaction.

 

Ren looks so young. 

 

Maker has he always looked this young? It strikes her suddenly that she doesn't know how old he is. It never occurred to her to ask. He always just.. Was.  Older than her but not by more than a decade she’s sure, but now... with the red light of a dying star painting his features, she sees the child he must once have been.

 

Anguished and small. Uncertain in the worst way. 

 

Lost.

 

“Please son,” Han is saying,  _ pleading.  _ “Please come  _ home.” _

 

_ Home. _

 

She had forgotten. Forgotten that the boy he had been had had a home. A family. Even if they had disowned him. Even if he had rejected them. There’s history there, long and complex and full of pains she can’t even imagine as an orphan.

 

Once she’d thought they could only belong to the stars. To each other.

 

Maybe she was wrong.

 

Maybe it would be better if Ren went with him. If he rejoined his family, reclaimed his past… The selfish part of her balks at it. Fists clenching convulsively as she tries to steady her suddenly racing pulse. Just because she’s been abandoned to the winds doesn’t mean he has to be, and doesn’t he deserve it? After all he’s been through? To find some place that’s his and his alone?

 

She looks up, seeing Finn looking back across the emptiness. Another lost soul found. Even from this distance she can see his concern. His  _ fear.  _ He has found a place with the Resistance…

 

But her?

 

She’s not like Finn, as much as she wishes she were. As much as she tried to convince herself at one point she could be. She’s too alien, to sharp and strange and  _ other  _ to belong to any one place anymore. Any one cause. 

 

She’s not like Ren either, no matter how proud of him she is in this moment. No matter how hard her heart is thumping with  _ joy  _ at what he’s done. The darkness he’s avoided, the light he’s reclaiming inch by fragile inch. 

 

She’s not like him because she has no past. No ties.

 

She’s a walking loose end, just waiting to be tucked neatly out of every life she crosses. She swallows thickly, forcing her eyes away from the balcony. It hurts too much. Still too raw as her gaze fixes on the bridge instead, clinging only onto the pride as she meets Ren’s gaze. Eyes true black again and shining.

 

As if he’s heard her. 

 

-

 

There was a time he might have longed for this.

 

The acceptance, the over-riding certainty that he’s more than a bad memory to the people he’s dedicated himself to forgetting. A memory of the temptation still flickering beneath the darkness as he stands sentinel before his father.

 

But he doesn’t want it anymore.

 

He knows what he’s done. The things he regrets, the things he  _ doesn’t.  _ He knows that despite Han’s words this benediction is a temporary offering. He has always been too jagged for them, sharp and dark and bloody and they all know it. Han… his mother, the Resistance. It’s not his home any more than the First Order and its empty throne are.

 

He can no longer force himself to fit himself into the boxes they ascribe him, no matter how much he wants too. He must face his sins alone. Live with his past his own way.

 

He can’t put his faith in them. 

 

For so long he has judged himself on others, praised and punished himself in turn for the contents of his veins. 

 

But no more. 

 

His higher power is Rey.

 

His  _ home  _ is Rey.

 

Everything else is just… temporary. A sand storm too soon blown over. 

 

“No.” He says to Han, even as his gaze flits back to her. Reading the anxiety on her face, the joy and pride and  _ guilt.  _ Feeling her contradictions pouring into his chest through their bond, a perverse sort of soothing. To know she’s almost as torn as he. His true reflection. “It’s not my home anymore. I’m not sure it ever was.”

 

He steps forward, past the figure that has haunted him for so long. Leaving him in the past where he belongs, where it  _ all  _ belongs. Taking long strides across the bridge to where she’s waiting, holding his hand out to her.

 

A silent plea.

 

No more causes. No more missions or purposes or orders.

 

Just them, together.

 

-

 

She can feel the heat rise in her face as he offers her his hand, fighting to keep from running as she crosses to his side. Stupid, selfish tears threatening to overflow as the relief washes through her. Tangling her fingers in his, too tight, too close, as he pulls her into his orbit once more. The feeling overtaking everything else, all of the fear and anxiety of the future. The horrors of the past.

 

It washes it all away.

 

She forces herself to focus, they’re not out of the woods. Not yet. But Ri’ia are they close. closer than they’ve ever been before.

 

Straightening her back she calls to the man still standing alone on the bridge, proud of how strong her voice sounds now. How steady.

 

“The charges are set.” 

 

“So you’re both just gonna… gonna  _ stay  _ with the First Order then?” He shouts after them, frustration boiling over in her voice. “After all this? After…  _ everything?” _

 

It can’t touch them now. Nothing can.

 

“No.” She calls back, unable to pull her gaze away from Ren’s eyes now they’re his own again. Losing herself in the familiar darkness, seeing all of her own hopes and fears reflected back. Her true equal.

 

“So you  _ will  _ join the Resistance?”

 

She can’t keep her lips from twitching up into a small, tired smile as Ren squeezes her hand. Feeling the golden thread in her chest growing stronger and stronger with every heartbeat. “No.”

 

“Well then where the hell  _ are _ you going?” 

 

She bites her lip, shrugging her shoulders as they turn away from the man on the bridge. From Chewbacca and Finn and all of the people who have informed her life. For better or worse. Leaving them all behind in the silence as they head towards the exit. One foot in front of the other as they wind back through the base, heading for the tri-level hangar and  _ freedom. _

 

The truth is… it doesn’t matter.

 

It doesn’t matter where they go next, or what they do.

 

Starkiller is destroyed, the First order scattered to the winds. The Resistance’s survival ensured.

 

And they… they’re setting their own path.

 

Together.

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (( Annnnd.... that's all she wrote folks! I truly hope you've enjoyed the story, and if you did I can't tell you how much I'd appreciate a little comment - they honestly do mean the world to me! <3 I have some nebulous ideas for an epilogue but I'm not sure yet. ^^; Would you like that or is the open ending better for you? Lemme know!!! <333
> 
> It's been a crazy crazy ride - possibly my last in fanfiction for a while- and so many of you have stuck with this tale through thick and thin that I could honestly just write a seven thousand page thank you letter to you all right here... buuuuut I will spare your eyes! Instead I shall simply thank you again!
> 
> May the Force be with you all! <333))


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